Shakespeare's King Lear made Tadashi Suzuki world-famous, after which the Chekhov Theater's art director Oleg Tabakov invited him to stage the same play with Russian actors.
"The sense of their meeting is to let our actors look into the director's method, and to let him learn something new from our actors brought up in a different culture and on different theatrical principles," Tabakov said.
Before the play a greeting from head of the Russian Federal Agency for Culture and Cinema Mikhail Shvydkoi was read. Shvydkoi said that Moscow was looking forward to a play directed by a master fusing bold experiments with century-old traditions.
Suzuki selected the actors by himself among the company as well as from the Chekhov Theater students, one of his concerns being the candidates' physical condition.
Last summer they spent three weeks at Suzuki School in Japan. In September the Japanese director came to Moscow to proceed with rehearsing.
The Russian King Lear will open in the Chekhov Theater in Moscow later this month.
"The whole world, the whole globe is a hospital, and the man is a patient; accordingly, I have laid the scenes of most of my recent works in a hospital, in fact, in an asylum," the Japanese director said in comment on his new play.
Suzuki's main character is a man who has long abandoned his family, who anticipates nothing in his life save a lonely death in an asylum. His reminiscences and meditations are similar to King Lear's.
"This is a fusion of two theater cultures, two languages and theater concepts - a most interesting thing that could possibly happen; comparing one to another, we gain an insight into the nature, diversity, and the enormous hidden potential of the modern theater," Tabakov said.
