IZO

The so-called "column of Makarevich", part of the drama theatre in Veliki Novgorod. The objection to the column, so-called because Andrei Makarevich, then a young architect and later member of the rock group Mashina Vremeni, worked on its design, is that it is a suicide spot (Russia-ic).

Diamond & Schmitt Architects from Canada will complete the reconstruction of the Mariinsky Theatre following the dismissal of Dominique Pierrot (Russia-ic).

Jennifer Aniston owes success to harsh Russian teacher (Yahoo).

Leonid Monastyrsky, a former director at the Moscow Arts Theatre (MKhAT) has been sentenced to six years in a harsh-regime prison-camp for commissioning an attempt on the life of his wife, Bolshoi Theatre ballerina Irina Dmitrieva, his daughter and his son-in-law in an attempt to gain sole ownership of their 5-room flat in central Moscow (RIA Novosti, in Russian).

Actor Stanislav Sadalsky performing in, apparently, a night-club. Because/not for sadness/was Georgia created/by the Lord...

Dragan Klaic visits Moscow and Walter Benjamin's diary is on his mind (Sign and Sight).

Spyski in London (Times). New Bond girl from Ukraine (Yahoo News) (thanks, MK).

Profile of Alexander Lebedev, the man sponsoring the Chekhov Theatre in Yalta (NY Times) (thanks, MK). The Rich Also Cry - but not yet:

Sixty percent of his holdings were wiped out by the Russian stock market crash this month, Mr. Lebedev said cheerfully, as the coffee cups and ashtrays were cleared away. That fact does not make him unusual among Moscow’s big industrialists, known as oligarchs, most of whom have borrowed heavily against future earnings.

Banker Alexander Lebedev and son Evgeni are restoring the Chekhov Theatre in Yalta with support from actors John Malkovich and Kevin Spacey (Kommersant, in Russian).

Director Mark Zakharov will present a dramatic version of Vladimir Sorokin's novel Day of the Oprichnik at the Lenkom Theatre; dates not yet known (gazeta.ru, in Russian).

Has actress and pop-star Zemfira's putative lover Renata Litvinova had a nose-job? (radulova, in Russian). UPDATE: that would be the nose below. Before or after? I don't know, but there doesn't seem to be much wrong with it. Renata, from the Suffering Series, 1999-2002, by Vladimir Clavijo-Telepnev (thanks, MK).

The actors seem to have won the fight for their building on the Arbat; an order transferring its ownership to Rossvyazokhrankultura has been withdrawn (Lenta.ru, in Russian).

The International Konstantinovsky Charitable Foundation in St Petersburg has bought the Nikita Lobanov-Rostovsky collection of Russian theatre art for "under $20 million" (John Varoli/Art Newspaper).

A new musical entitled Silicon Idiot (Силиконовая дура), about teenagers, their internet-oriented lifestyle and the capitulation of their parents, has become a runaway hit at the Golden Mask festival in Ekaterinburg (Rossiiskaya Gazeta, in Russian).

A new book on the Moscow Yiddish Theatre, from Yale (Daily Press).

The Asia Times reviews the belly-dancer play, about Nadira Alieva's life in Uzbekistan and her relationship with the British ambassador.

She [Nadira Alieva] was recently quoted by a British newspaper as saying that she had first learned about spanking and masochism after meeting foreign men in the Tashkent nightclub. Alieva admits that this was a part of the deal with the playwright and producers. "They wanted to make it attractive to theater-goers," she says.

Well, if sex sells cars, then maybe it can sell a campaign against human rights' abuses. I'm not sure, though, especially when sexual exploitation is part of what she is, presumably, campaigning against. She was being paid $300 a month as a pole dancer in Tashkent: I hope she's getting more now.

Russian London

Andrei Bartenev is at fashionable gallery Riflemaker. Performance on Monday.

On Sunday in Trafalgar Square the Russian winter festival, speech from Mayor Ken Livingstone, best friend of Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov, whose wife apparently owns a whacking great house here.

In the Standard, a play about heroic ex-ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray and his affair with a belly-dancer, written and performed by the girl herself, gets, I'm sorry to say,  a measly two stars out of five and the epithet "amateurish" (no link, I read it).

In Russia, the British Council is apparently still functioning.

Why Weil?

Craig Murray on theatre director Mark Weil, murdered in Tashkent.

Tokyo show/Konchalovsky movie

Alla Rosenfeld curates Russian theatre art in Tokyo.

The Moscow Times on Andrei Konchalovsky's new film (pdf), Gloss (Glyanets).

Permanent Revolution

It is remarkable how the feeling endures that the 1917 Russian Revolution is of vital importance to us today. The CCSU Recorder reports on a lecture (pdf) about Soviet agitprop art by Mike Alewitz:

Alewitz closed the presentation by explaining to the students that an anti-war protest will follow the exhibit when it ends March 10.

“Art can make history. It is not something only for a gallery. There is a tremendous need for this art,” he said. “We will take the banners off the wall and lead protesters toward campus. We have the power to end the war just like we did in Vietnam. Anyone can do this. I encourage you to participate.”

And The New York Times reviews (pdf) the third part of Tom Stoppard's trilogy about the revolutionaries, The Coast of Utopia.

The Method

The Australian looks at The Method (pdf): the hidden link, as I pointed out in Soviet Socialist Realism, between Soviet Socialist Realism and Hollywood. Both the Soviet painters and the Hollywood actors were influenced by - they both practised - The Method.

Near the Starlite Diner

I occasionally have a bite to eat in the Starlite Diner, a long-established hamburger cafe in the little park by the Chaikovski Concert Hall. This poster, for Gogol's Inspector General, has been in situ for several years now, the case accumulating its current patina of bird droppings etc. It's a striking image to encounter on entering a park; it seems to me to capture the essence of, well, thespianism.

Vasilev Theatre

Anatoli Vasilev, the celebrated famous director of Moscow's School of Dramatic Art (founded by Vasilev himself), has been sacked (see here, in Russian). The official motivation is reorganisation of the theatre, which includes (surprise surprise) confiscation of one of its venues, a piece of prime real estate on Povarskaya Street. It is not widely known that Vasilev, among his other achievements, taught a friend of mine, Clem Cecil, founder of the Moscow Architecture Preservation Society, to roll her "r's" in Russian style.