Another Country: Two Weeks at the Maly, by Natalie Abrahimi

Natalie Abrahami is co-artistic director of the Gate Theatre in Notting Hill. She has directed productions at the Royal Court, Battersea Arts Centre, and Southwark Playhouse. In 2005 Natalie won the James Menzies Kitchin-trust Award for her production of Samuel Beckett’s play Not I. She is a member of the Genesis Directors Project at London’s Young Vic theatre.

Having the privilege of spending two weeks training with Lev Dodin at the Maly Theatre in St Petersburg is quite simply, to my mind, the opportunity of a lifetime. And it’s an opportunity I would never have had without the Young Vic’s Genesis Directors Project creating this unique possibility. I had seen as much of Dodin’s work as I could whenever it came to the Barbican as part of the Bite seasons but going to St Petersburg meant that we were able to see his groundbreaking works from 1984 performed alongside works from 2008 in situ. I’d heard so much about this ensemble system but never before had I really understood what it meant for an actor to play a role for 23 years and keep on finding new life in it.

By watching the plays and talking to the actors and to Lev himself we gradually got a sense of what it meant to make theatre that keeps evolving over time, that never stops evolving and that, therefore, never stops moving its audiences.

The joy of being there for a fortnight is that we became really immersed in the spirit of the company: eating at the canteen, training in voice and singing like the rest of the actors, watching warm ups, rehearsals, and technical rehearsals. The highlights for me were the singing lessons and the late night discussions with Lev.

I found the singing particularly significant as the notion of singing in chorus is one of the tenets of the company. The principle being that, if one can listen to one’s partner in song, one will listen on stage. Singing terrifies me, whether in public or in private, but the lessons with Mischa the Maestro (Head of Music at the Maly) were the ones I looked forward to most – in a mixed sense of terror at having to overcome this fear, and joy at singing Bach with seven other directors.

Being part of a group of directors was fantastic because being immersed in a theatre environment and knowing we were there to glean and learn as much as possible, meant that we were constantly asking each other about the work we did and sharing our own approaches with each other so that were making the most of every moment to improve our own practice.

The discussions with Lev were extraordinary as he spoke so passionately about his philosophy of theatre making and his life in art and the inherent sacrifice involved to ake the work he does.

It was incredibly liberating to hear Lev talk about how, as a director, one is on an impossible path towards unattainable perfection and that, with each production, the ambition should be to get one step closer, in the knowledge that one will never arrive, and so therefore failure is ever present and part of the process. I have thought about this mantra very often since I have returned and it has given me much succour in the bleaker hours and I’m sure it will continue to do so.

Lev told us in one of our sessions that ‘he who likes sausage shouldn’t watch sausage being made’ but I found that my appreciation of his work grew exponentially when I saw first hand the techniques and approaches he used to create his work. I love sausages; but I am now even more committed to and excited by the process of making them than ever before.