Stanislavsky from the East

 

 

The Actor’s house

The actor, his highness

 

Stanislavsky from the East

 

At the end of the last season the ceremony for Stanislavsky award was held in CDA. The jury presented awards (in the amount of 600 USD and 300 USD) to the experienced and young actors: A. Demidova, V. Andreeva, A. Zakharova, M. Djabrailova, N. Schukina, A. Kazakov, as well as producer Galina Volchek.

The founder of this award is a fan of Stanislavsky’s system from South Korea Mr. Na San Man – a writer, professor, scholar. Later he founded a fund named after K. Stanislavsky; the fund’s goal is to promote the heritage of a great producer, support modern theater arts in Russia which are inspired by K.S. Stanislavsky’s school. The fund’s new committee consists of President – Mr. Na San Man, Vice-Presidents – M. Eskina and V. Etush, and also all contest winners.

The editorial office asked Mr. Na San Man to tell about himself, how this meeting of the Korean artist with the Russian culture happened and about fund’s goals.

I come from a rural family. I am 35 years old. I picked theatre department at the university. My parents were against of it because they thought this occupation was a little of prestige. I also worked while studying, because scholarships were very small. At that time I wrote a novel “Lonely rising moon” which was published in a newspaper and later was acknowledged as the best publication in 1983, and a little later after that I produced this play at the theatre.

Actually, there was also another award: I was excused from the military service. Since that time I have a certificate of a military correspondent. Nowadays I am the only theater figure in Korea who did not do military service.

The title of my dissertation is “The Grotovsky’s method and the Korean system for developing an actor”. After this research work, thanks to Grotovsky, I discovered for myself Stanislavsky’s system. I read “My life in the art” in the English version. I wanted to learn that book in original, in the original language, compare Stanislavsky’s system with the ancient theater tradition of acting skills in Korea.

After finishing university I worked in Korea as a producer and professor. In three years I produced ten performances, taught acting training. I worked as a producer in Kwongju and as a professor at Pusan Kyungsung University, traveling back and forth by bus.

From 1988 till 1990 I wrote three books which became best sellers. The publishers got interested at me. As a result it helped me to found in Russia a charity fund named after Stanislavsky with a purpose to support Russian actors.

In 1991 I came to Moscow to GITIS. First year I studied Russian language. But Korean publishers found me even in Moscow. My readers asked for a sequel to a novel, so I had to isolate myself, get detached from my Moscow work and start working on my novel. In March 28 I sent the novel via fax, in April 8 I received a proof, in April 11 the novel was published in Korea in more than 1 million copies. That day I decided to celebrate that event and invited Russian actors: Alla Demidova, who I met first of all, Oleg Tabakov, Vladimir Andreev and others.

Russia is a unique theatre power. Here we have all fundamentals of the XX century’s theatre arts, here is the heart of the world theatre.

I would like to work with your stage professionals – actors, professors. However, I would have been misunderstood, if the Moscow society saw Stanislavsky’s fund’s main goal, which was founded by joint efforts, as only presentation of awards. The main goal is studying Stanislavsky’s system.

Though, in Moscow my scholar and performer’s interests have been expanded: an actor at the producing system of Stanislavsky as well as Meiyerkhold and Vakhtangov – this is a scope of problems that I am interested at.

When I was a student I played Solyony in “Three sisters”. My experience is not limited only to the legitimate theatre: I also did some dancing, plastic arts, wrestling. I performed as a dancer. Modern actor in Russia is interesting for me partially because I am an actor too. Here I discovered such great actors as Alla Demidova (after watching 6 plays with her), Olga Yakovleva, Marina Neelova. I remember Mikhail Philippov’s work at “Napoleon”, Vladimir Andreev at “Propavshi syujet”, Vladimir Etush at “Bely krolik”. I would like to emphasize producing work by Galina Volchek.

My dream is to expand theatre cooperation between Korea and Russia. In Moscow at the theatre institute named after Schukin there is already a group of Korean students. I would like to show my play “We are united” in Moscow produced by me with the Korean actors. This play has an interesting background story. For this play I brought together the actors from the districts which were in opposition to each other. While working together they overcame the resentment, became friends and played the performance. I would like to work with Russian actors. I am not refusing the idea to produce a play here in Russia by my novel “Lonely rising moon” with your actors.

At the end of this season I hope a new jury will make non-biased evaluation of actors’ work of this theatre year. Hopefully we won’t pass by something significant and talented. In last season the jury found itself in trouble to come to agreement. For the most part they were guided by standards and in a less degree by the requirements of the theater reality. Now I believe the new jury will show some curiosity and objectiveness.