Anatoly Kochanov (Naftali ben Avshalom, Cohen)
Part 2, August 2024, Exodus Issue 262

 

Anatoly, after the article about the Shalom Theatre was published in Exodus Magazine (Russian Edition), you mentioned that you were personally acquainted with the theatre director Alexander Levenbuk and promised to share several stories about the theatre.

While reading your article, Elena, the image of Alik Levenbuk with his signature smile appeared before me. All of Alexander Semenovich's friends in the theatre and fellow students at the medical institute (after all, Alexander Semenovich was a doctor by education) called him simply Alik.

My wife Marina and I have been connected with Alik Levenbuk and the Shalom Theatre for about fifteen years. There is much to say about Aleksandr Semenovich himself, and about Solomon Mikhoels' chair in the foyer, and about the wonderful performances that Jews came to from all over the Soviet Union. I can tell you a lot, because I happened to be a member of the Board of Trustees of the theater. I will focus on two interesting events in the life of the theater.

I will begin with a story about the musical performance "Stuffed Fish with Garnish.” Its dramaturgy is based on the unfading Jewish freylekhs, which for our people is not just a dance, but a whole philosophy. Writer, playwright and screenwriter Arkady Inin expressed his opinion about the production as follows: "The whole life of Jewry is like freylekhs: if there is laughter, then through tears." From the first moments, the viewer is immersed in the atmosphere of a Jewish shtetl with its colorful characters and immediately begins to feel part of this world.

The performance began with a scene of a real Jewish feast: Shabbat, candles, challah, wine. An important element of the performance were the magnificent dances staged by Levenbuk's wife, Vizma. One of the key dramatic roles was played by the talented actor Grigory Kaganovich. I remember that famous artists came to the premiere - Iosif Kobzon, Klara Novikova. Iosif, at the end of the performance, went on stage and shared his impressions of what he had seen. As always, after the premiere, the theater director organized a buffet. All the theater actors, technical staff, members of the council and guests gathered at the table. Iosif with his wife Nelya, Klara, Arkady Inin and the rest of those present animatedly discussed the production and unanimously congratulated Alexander Semenovich. The actors also shared their experiences. For example, how difficult it was for them to prepare the dances. Vizma was very demanding, and the actors are not dancers, and they had to work hard to bring the performance to a high professional level. Klara Novikova, as always, told a couple of Jewish stories.

The play "Stuffed Fish with Garnish" was a great success for a long time.

I would also like to recall the play "The Merry Number 13". It was a real Purimshpil! Even the great Solomon Mikhoels (whose chair from his costume department still stands in the theater foyer in front of the entrance to the auditorium on a small pedestal) staged Purimshpil in his theater (then it was called GOSET). With his plays, he actively promoted Jewish culture. It was a traditional Jewish theater production associated with the holiday of Purim. The basis of any Purimshpil is the famous story of the Persian king Ahasuerus and his minister Haman, who plotted the extermination of the Jews. As a result, after the intervention of Mordechai and his niece, Queen Esther, the sinister plan resulted in the death of the villain himself. The genre of Purimshpil originated in the 16th century, and during the early Middle Ages, an effigy of Haman, made of wood and rags, was often burned on Purim. Such performances were especially popular in Italy, where real masquerades were held.

But in the USSR in the 1930s, such productions were banned. The ideology of the Soviet Stalinist regime could not come to terms with Jewish performances of this kind, and then everything stopped. Solomon Mikhoels himself was killed in 1948, and the GOSET theater was finally closed in 1949. More than fifty years passed before Alexander Levenbuk staged this famous story based on the play by the famous satirist Anatoly Trushkin at the Shalom Theatre. In those years, such popular actors of the spoken genre as Klara Novikova, Efim Shifrin, and Vladimir Vinokur performed Trushkin’s short satirical stories. And of course, the modern interpretation of the famous story about the life of the Jewish people was already an extraordinary event. The play consisted of two parts with an intermission. Magnificent scenery, beautiful costumes, and excellent acting transformed the play into a magical performance from the era of Ahasuerus’s kingdom. After the brilliant premiere, I asked Trushkin how he managed to convey this ancient story to the audience so easily and at the same time instructively. He answered: “This is what the thousand-year-old Jewish past speaks to me.”

The stage recreated the atmosphere of 2,500 years ago, when the terrible fate first fell to the Jewish people and then happily passed them by. But everything was played lightly and with a sense of humor, as befits a proper Purimshpil.

There is much more that can be said about the Shalom Theatre in memory of Alexander Semenovich Levenbuk, but I have tried to highlight only a couple of these striking episodes.