Feature: Three Russian Plays Come to the Barbican Centre

"This is like a dream for us," said Evgeny Pisarev, artistic director of the Moscow Pushkin Drama Theatre, at a reception in London last night.

He was talking about the fog, which hung heavy in the Barbican's tropical conservatory, and affirmed one of the more romantic stereotypes that many of his actors and had brought with them from Russia: London as a city of mystery and fog. They were enchanted.

After two years of planning, the Pushkin Theatre have brought three of their best-known repertory shows to the Barbican: The Cherry Orchard (review here), A Good Person of Szechwan, and Mother's Field.

"It's not always easy for foreigners to get to London," Andrey Belchenko, the theatre's general administrator, told me. "They asked us a lot of questions: 'Who are you? What are you here for?'" He acknowledged that the present political climate might have made things especially difficult. But, he pointed out, "people in every country love Russian theatre".

From the London end, Toni Racklin, Barbican Centre's Head of Theatre, was in a celebratory mood. "This is absolutely the sort of work that we present at the Barbican. Our mission statement is 'arts without boundaries', and it's very, very important, that, as a small island, we open a window onto the world.

"Theatre always has the power to bring people together, but we are feeling it particularly now. These are turbulent times, and theatre can tell about our lives, and for our lives."

Someone who has drawn extra joy from the Pushkin Theatre's visit is Natalia Kurkina. A Moscow-born, London-based drama aficionado, she explains: "If I don't go to theatre once a week, that's a week wasted for me." But watching Russian theatre come to London has been especially significant for her.

"It means that we're still in touch, that there's this cultural exchange, that we're not excluded." I didn't ask who she meant by 'we' - if she was speaking as a Russian expat or a resident of a country about to Brexit - but I realised that what she had said was applicable to both.

Taisiya Vilkova, one of the Pushkin Theatre's leading ladies, and a rising star in Russia, loves what she's seen so far of London: "The colours, the people, the architecture." She offered her own interpretation of the project. "I love when art is in context, but separate. When it reflects what's going on at the present moment, but when it is separate, when it stands for itself. Theatre is always theatre."

We talked about theatre and art, politics and current events. At the end of our conversation, Taisiya did what Natalia and Andrey had done as well: she looked around at the trees, the lights, and the fog in the conservatory, and remarked on how lovely this place is.

The Good Person of Szechwan and Mother's Field at the Barbican until 9 February.

To post a comment, you must register and login.