Joseph Raihelgauz: “I attend their shows to shout, “Ukraine is not as you say!”

What language would you like to speak, Mr Raihelgauz?

I can speak Ukrainian, but I have no practice. People answer me in Russian even here in Odesa, in Ukraine. Ukrainian is a very beautiful language. Let’s speak Ukrainian.

How did you get used to your name? I have heard that even though you were called after your grandfather, your name entails some associations with the person you don’t like and thus, you don’t like your name.

I was called after my grandfather – my mother’s father. His name was Joseph. During the war, all his family had a trip with an echelon. My mother was 15 then (her sister was 13). When Germans began bombarding their echelon, mother and father died in full view of their children. Mother began working as a nurse, she had finished the first year of the Odesa Medicine College. Later, she called me after her father whom I had never seen.

My mother died last year. Before that, she had written a book. I can’t but cry when I read it. So can’t others… Once, I shot the film “Echelon” based on this story. The script was created by Mikhail Roshchin, my daughter, who is a world-famous scene-designer, played the girl, she was 6 years old. I shot our friends from a family of Lundstrem, a famous jazz musician, and a 4-year-old boy Hulia. He is now more than 30 years old, and he is one of the best world violinists, an incredible genius. It doesn’t matter whom I shot exactly, Lundstrem or Tsynman. It matters that I shot them all there, as well as I shot Vladimir Mironov.

We are opening soon our old-new room of the theatre behind the stage. It provides incredible opportunities. I decided to use it and made up a play, which is called “Mother’s echelon”. I offered my daughter to work on it with me, to be a scene-designer. I know that there are queues to her, that she hardly breathes and she is having a premier with Baryshnikov in New York soon, and she has recently had a premiere at the London Royal Ballet. I fail to be always aware of her activity, but I offered her this idea about the echelon and grandmother.

As for the name, yes, it annoyed me… Despite the fact that there were Shurik Goffman, Seva Pritsker and Lionia Weisberg in my class. This Josia seemed to me… It is now I am Joseph… Then it started to be associated with this bastard, this Hitler…

You studied Ukrainian at school, but did you hear it in your yard, did you speak with your friends Ukrainian?

I heard it only in school. All my neighbours, school friends spoke Russian.

Actually, it is my feature: when I am not given something enough, I start to delve into it. When I was young, I was very fond of Ukrainian literature. Especially, even if it sounds corny – I liked Shevchenko. There are still some poems which I declare at events and on TV, and I realise that they are about me. Some lines seem not to have anything in common with me. For example, this one “a small house in the field near a clear lake on the outskirts of the village.” I begin reading, and I have a complete feeling that this is me who is “sitting lonely beside the fence dressed up in old clothes”, and “it will never see freedom, a holy freedom.” Genius!

Do you read any modern Ukrainian authors?

No, I don’t. Today – I don’t. Today, it is a special conversation on communication between our cultures…

I offered to my friend Dmitri Bohomolov, a prominent Ukrainian director, an interesting idea. He has recently been appointed the principal director of the National Theatre, and I came to Kyiv especially at that time, I came to the theatre, and there my idea was born. I said to him, “Let’s stage Romeo and Juliet together.” The Capulettis speak only Ukrainian, the Monteccis speak only Russian. He turned on the heat but then said we should wait a bit more. So, we are waiting. Though I wouldn’t wait, I would like to stage it now.

Why were you expelled from the Kharkiv University?

It was nothing special. The year I was entering, they were accepting students only to the Ukrainian Drama Directing Department. It is the same as to call the Journalistic Department a Ukrainian Journalistic Department. Or as a Ukrainian physics. A Ukrainian Drama Director. I should mention that prominent professors worked there: Hlaholin, a Kurbas’s teacher – an incredible director, very interesting, and Kurbas’s widow – the other professor. Everything was fair: you had to go through many auditions and etudes. I remember well that I read there Dovzhenko’s “The Enchanted Desna” about his grandmother and her curses. I roared with Ivan Franko’s poems, “hands of everyone are being twisted faster, Than, by a reptile, shoulders lowered some Master, As if he was somewhere from above. And everybody has a hard and huge steel hammer, And Master’s Voice is crying to us as a roar: “You are to break that cliff!” – all my hatred for the Soviet government was shown there, I tried to make powerful each word.

However, the most important things were etudes. We were offered Shakespeare, and I made up an etude, naturally, for a Romeo and Juliet. I remember well putting three tables on each other. The first table was swinging. There was the same construction next to it. I put a girl and a boy on them. They were very afraid to fall down. I am still living like that, I needed a pure sincere passion. They were scared but they were saying something to each other, they were keeping the balance all the time. I was happy. Professors appreciated that.

They took 5 Jewish people, 5 Russians, and 3 Ukrainians to the Ukrainian Drama Directing Department. When we started to study, those documents were sent to Kyiv for confirmation. Babiychuk was the Minister of Culture then. He was famous, there was the anecdote about him: Ukraine has two misfortunes: Babiy Yar and Babiychuk.

I was 17 years old, and I managed to come to his office. I remember giving some presents to his secretary, explaining her something. A poor girl was so confused that I managed to enter his office. It was like a veranda, there were a table and a palm in the corner. Under the palm, mudilo (asshole), I am sorry, I can’t find a Ukrainian word for that, was sitting. There was a narrow red-green Kremlin carpet leading to him. I was approaching, and he couldn’t understand who I was. When I came up to him, he was shocked, “What are you doing here?” I said, “Well, I want to study at the Ukrainian Drama Directing Department.” I started to say something. He couldn’t realise why I was standing there, in his office. He was under the palm, it was something special. When he realised, I had a feeling that he would throw me on the top of this palm. He started to screech and call his assistants, that poor girl, his secretary, came, he was screaming, “Who is that? How?” I was like a spider there…

The results were cancelled, our course was disbanded.

However, I should say that Kurbas’s widow – Valentina Chystiakova gave me a reference to Vasyl Vasylko. I brought it to him. I was so shocked! It was the first time I saw such an exquisite apartment, it was situated just opposite the Ukrainian Theatre. There was a grand piano in a big hall, and Vasyl Vasylko started to talk to me and asked, “How did you pass the exams? What did you do?” It was a shock to me, a great occasion.

You mean, you were taken to the course at first, and then they said goodbye to everybody who came?

Yes, good-bye. Ukrainian boys were allowed to study at the Kyiv Institute with those exams, but I wasn’t.

However, as the result, I am happy. Because firstly, I met Vasyl Vasylko, secondly, I was working at the Odesa Youth Theatre for a year and wore hand-me-down after Nikolai Gubenko.

I have a story as I saw a notice “Actor with 48 Size wanted”. I wore 46. I breathed in and entered the theatre. They didn’t ask me even to read anything, only to try on costumes. Each had a label “Gubenko”. I tell this story to him the hundredth time but he is thrilled and always asks me to tell it one more time. I mean it, his eyes fill up with water.

You wanted to create the Odesa City Theatre. What about this idea?

I gave it up. I will tell you more. Here, in Odesa, my student, Sasha Onishchenko lives and works. He is very gifted. He has a good “Teatr na Chainoi” theatre, but I will talk up. Sasha is a master, he creates brilliant, beautiful works. If he is not in-demand in 6 months – a year in Odesa, I will persuade him to move to Moscow. I am sure, he will stage a beautiful play in my theatre and I will tell him, “Stay here and work.”

Weirdly, but it is often a sold out at this theatre. It has recently moved to a new building with a bigger hall. Why do you say that the theatre is not in high demand in Odesa?

The theatre bases on projects. You can disagree but it is not a powerful theatre with a big repertoire and a constant troop. As for me and as for creating a real city theatre in Odesa, I am a crashed plane. Odesa didn’t want it, what can I do? Actually, I should write a funny story “My dialogues with governors of Odesa”. There will be all from Bodelan to a present governor Stepanov there. All dialogues are fantastic, however, the champion is Saakashvili. I can arrange concerts “My dialogues with Saakashvili”. Every time, we finish with something, then we bump into each other in three months, let’s say, and there is a feeling we haven’t seen each other only a minute.

Well, Stepanov is a nice person, expressive, speaks well. We met three months ago, he started to make declarations of love to me, told that he was very happy that I was in his office, that Odesa was proud of me, and my bust should stand near Pushkin’s one. I didn’t know how to express my gratitude. Then he called his three assistants and told them to make everything possible for a successful tour. I left his office, and he has never answered my calls anymore. Everything we had an agreement on, and we had agreed on many things, nothing has been done. His assistants were fighting with my assistants, “He is busy. No, he can’t. No, he won’t do it.” I don’t scold him, I am just surprised. I know that he has more than a million of people in Odesa region, and I have 150 people in my theatre. But if I say to a student that I am watching his work tomorrow at 3 o’clock, then I have to really die to fail to do it.

Several years ago, you said that Odesa theatrical life had degenerated, but in comparison to what? As for me, the level of plays and acting is constantly improving.

Perhaps, it is better now than in the 90s, but I remember, excuse me, I am quite old, in the 70s, the 80s, each theatre was headed by a prominent director.

A beautiful Odesa Russian Theatre is dead. It became better in the Youth Theatre as there was an interesting directing from St. Petersburg, but it also has faded away. I saw some decent plays at the Ukrainian Theatre. By the way, the Ukrainian Theatre is the most vivid and expressive in Odesa. It is great.

I may seem again to be scolding, but Odesa is a big city, which has turned into complete boondocks. I am sincerely sure, and I am not flattering, that Odesa is one of the cultural capitals of the world. I believe that in a while, people will know Odesa not because of its port, agriculture, and grapes (it is very good and important), but because of its music, art and great theatres. Odesa has already given everything which concerns culture and art. It continues to develop it. I have said many times that world scene-design of the XX century is represented mainly by artists from Odesa. Leo Alshtitz – a great, prominent, ingenious artist. Mikhail Ivnitsky. David Borovsky. I said to each governor, “Let’s put a sign in the yard of the Zirka cinema, where Borovsky was born.” The monument to Borovsky was opened in La Scala, I opened his museum in Prague. The whole world acknowledged him the first scene-designer of the XX century. All students, my daughter, and her students worship to Borovsky. Odesa could put a sign at least. This is Odesa, indeed! It is the level! How is it possible?

Today, well, I am raising a painful topic again, and everybody will get offended. Today, everything stands on its ear, everything is insane. I say it for the hundredth time. In any world theatre, a director is a head.

Perhaps, it is because in our country, politics, and economy influences culture a lot and deforms it. This can be the problem. A theatre manager has to become a buffer and protect a principal director from economic problems.

When a director runs a theatre, he or she understands that a nice actress can get a role if she is interesting and gifted. Managers as they are not professionals and are not very keen on acting and directing, begin seeing a theatre as their own enterprise. They start to develop a theatre as their own business and not as an art project.

I run my theatre in Moscow, I have a prominent manager, a book should be written about her – Anna Hrohol. But she tells me, “Please, give a role to this actor, let him stage a play, he wants to, he has made everything up to this way.” I can make a gift. There were three months of rehearsals, and I said that it wouldn’t be in my theatre. If she was a manager in Odesa, the play would be staged. And people would buy tickets.

Restaurants are made by chefs. They have their signature dishes, recipes, people start to visit these restaurants. If a restaurant starts to be run by a cemetery director, he or she takes the restaurant as a place for earning money. The same with a theatre, a theatre should be run by an art director. A manager is a second person, he or she deals with finances and can say to a principle director, “We can’t do this project – it is very expensive.”

Nevertheless, sometimes, we make the middle path consciously. We have one lossmaking play even though we sell all the tickets. But we can’t sell tickets for 200 $, that’s why we lose money.

As for Odesa, there is a paradox: there are many talented people and opportunities for creating something, but there is no art institute. I have offered several times the head of the Mechnikov University (Ihor Koval) to open a Theatre Department. It is very hard when you try to do something alone and everybody thinks that you want to get some benefits out of it. I have a work, I don’t need anything from Odesa. I have this evening, and it is already good for me…

You once said on a Russian show that “Ukrainian propaganda is even more bungling and worse than ours [Russian – ED.]” What did you mean? Where have you seen Ukrainian propaganda, I can’t see it anywhere?

What are you talking about?!

What you are talking about can be a private initiative, not a governmental one. Ukrainian media are not into it. There is no Ukrainian propaganda on Russian or overseas channels. Unlike your country, Ukraine doesn’t have such an institution which would develop strategies, we just don’t have money for that.

What money you are talking about… There are villains in Russia as well, I visit their shows to shout, “Ukraine is not as you say.” And there are 5-6 wing-nuts who want to tear their shirts and be the first to get some awards. I am just afraid they will be the first torn by people. I believe it will be exactly so, they have polluted people’s minds immensely. It is the same here. Yes, in Russia, they make it with more sense of talent, more professionally, better than here.

When you attend these shows, do you really believe that some Russian will hear you? What is your real goal?

Look, it is very simple. When they invite me, I know there will be a pack of dogs opposite me, but I believe the only thing that somewhere in a distant Russian region, a person sits and sees how some Ukrainophile Jew shouts, “You lie.” And I do it and say. I haven’t attended these shows last two-three months. But show editors call me every day. I will go there and say they lie again.

Don’t you feel like a punch bag?

We can say so. But I don’t care how I look… Sentsov is starving now at the prison. Does it mean we can say to him, “Fellow, are you insane, you will die! You won’t be released until officials agree on it.” Is he a punch bag? He is being spoken about much in Ukraine, but stop thousands of people in Russia on the streets and ask them who Sentsov is. 3 thousand people out of 10 will say, “He must have wanted to blow something up.” However, Sentsov has announced his position loudly.

Do you realise that they use you to keep the balance of opinions?

The option is simple: whether not to attend these shows at all or attend and shout. I choose to shout.

Do you believe anybody hears you?

What does believe mean? I don’t believe in anything, I am an atheist. As a director, I am keen on drama. Many people will learn from me that our economy is at the bottom. I shout to them to leave Ukraine, to pay attention to their economy, education, welfare – they are at the bottom!

Matvei Hanapolsky creates a great show. He makes it emotionally. He speaks Ukrainian for weeks. Thousands write to him, “You, Jew, hid in Kyiv, you will…” However, 10 people out of a thousand call and say, “It is so pleasant to speak Ukrainian with you!” It sounds. More than a million people listen to the “Ekho Moskvy” radio. I don’t know, I think Hanapolsky is right. I am sorry, I attended a Kseniia Larina’s show, she wants to seem a democrat, a liberal. She asked me exactly what you do, “Why do you go to these villains, to that trash, to that Soloviov (Russian TV propagandist).” I tell her on air, “Ksenia, let’s make an experiment. People who are listening to us now, will call here, and if more than a half say me not to go there, I swear, I won’t go anymore. However, if the majority says I have to go there, I will go and shout. It wasn’t a big majority, about 60 % said me to attend shows.

You said on one of the shows that the USSR had collapsed not only because of the Perestroika but also because of the Glasnost policy. Because the opportunity appeared to say loud important things which had been restricted. Now, there are even more opportunities. Today, everybody can share his or her view via social networks. Shall we wait for some big territories to break up?

Well, I don’t remember I said that, but I understand well that the USSR collapsed economically at first and then ideologically. As for Glasnost, Gorbachev and Yeltsin, I am still sure these are great policymakers of the USSR. They let countries break up. It is OK that they broke up. Because the time for the Empire had ended. Yes, I think that Glasnost was highly important. Not just Glasnost, but… the 90s are the happiest, the most beautiful years for our country, I mean Russia as well as Ukraine. However, our mentality had shaped several centuries before the USSR, during the Russia Empire. When people are used to that there is the master, and suddenly, there is no master. What should they do?

This is also why Putin has such a high popularity. He is a very gifted person. He is used to old ways of work. Today, the whole world wants to break up and live and work in peace. He has the skill to gather everything in a heap, while people have been shaping the stereotype for decades, “We will have more land!” But what do you need more land for, manage Siberia, Ural! It is strange…

Weirdly, any Russian is able to make some research and realise what is happening in his or her country or in the world, it doesn’t matter where he or she lives.

I’ll give a short answer. Perhaps, they are able, but they mostly don’t want to. It is more comfortable for them not to. They don’t want.

A recent survey in Russia shocked me: 30% of young people from 18 to 34 years old want to live and study in the West, while 80% of people who are older than 40 want to live in Russia. Unfortunately, if we conduct the survey in Ukraine, answers will be the same. I can say it because I see how Ukrainians move to Russia.

I leave my house outside Moscow, and there are only Ukrainians on the streets. They build, clean, do all the unskilled labour. It is a pity and embarrassing. As Poles to Europe, so Ukrainians come here. People want some quiet life and stability. They don’t want to fight for anything. However, it is such times when they care for children a lot (and it is right). Where will children live, what will they do? Nevertheless, no matter if they say that the Russian economy is decreasing, but there is stability. But now, it is challenged by the pension reform. It was a huge scandal, I even didn’t know how they would deal with that. Meanwhile, football is a drug for them. When Spain was beaten by Russia, everybody seemed to be high. A true opium for people.

Nothing has changed, people have been lied, they will be lied. Or perhaps, the situation has changed? For example, Sentsov, why do you say that only 100 people know about him…

Because it doesn’t concern their lives. The pension does, that’s why they worry. They don’t care about Sentsov.

Don’t they realise that they can be at Sentsov’s place tomorrow?

Even if they do, they don’t think it will happen to them. A person thinks he or she is OK, they won’t touch him or her. There were the same in 1937, in the 60s, at Brezhnev times. We went through it. These wing-nuts sing Vysotsky now. We love him! In fact, Vysotsky burnt. They didn’t let him come close.

We are constantly told, because people believe it, that there is the war in Odesa, there are tear grenades and rightwing forces. I haven’t had a talk with Kostiantyn Raikin yet. But he told everybody that his concert had been cancelled and he had almost been shot. Nonsense! One can think there are fighting holes here now… It is good that my theatre comes, but even my actors are afraid. They are less afraid now but sometimes ask, “Where is “Right Sector”, “when will it come?” It is a proper propaganda from both sides.

Have Sentsov and Serebrennikov cases scared artists?

No. Because they understand how it really is.

Interesting, how does it really look?

I realise that they can arrest me for some economical crime if I hold a poster on TV or somewhere, or make something which breaks their rules. They know it well. The mayor, the vice-mayor – everybody knows that Raihelgauz thinks, speaks and behaves this way. Moreover, I always say that I love my motherland Russia and my motherland Ukraine. Do what you want.

You don’t break their rules, do you?

It is hard to say. I might not have broken them yet but I do it until they let me come and call me until they can’t do without me. I use it.

What can they do with me? If they put me to prison, what will they do with me? I will be released, and I will leave the country. I won’t go to Odesa, because nobody is waiting for me here. I will go to Europe and will run a good theatre, stage plays, teach at a good university. They understand it. They have already lost many artists and businessmen. Business has escaped from Russia, it used to be powerful, huge here. My theatre used to have an incredible patronage council. It consisted of 10 millionaires. Now there are only 2-3 of them.

I have noticed an interesting trend, you were stopped being given awards in 2014, is it a coincidence?

Yes, I’ll tell you why. It is very easy to explain. There is a detail – not each award is mine. I am awarded as a professional every year. Last year, it was the Best Play of the Season Award. I am constantly awarded as a director. In 2014, I had no state award anymore. To get an award I have to ask for it, you see. I have to write on behalf of the Art Council of my theatre to the President Administration, “Our art director is so prominent, blah blah, give him please an order.” Then the Union of Theatre Workers has to confirm it. Then some other establishment has to confirm it. Moreover, my assistants would have to constantly call and watch the process whether everything is going on properly. After a while, I am told that the President or the Head of the Administration or the Minister of Culture is waiting for you to give the award.

So, you are absolutely right, in 2014, I decided: I will ask for an award only for my actors and actresses, for my theatre (in the form of restoration of the theatre, for example). I won’t ask for myself. I have three state awards, I have the highest award in Bulgaria, India. Why do I need theirs?

All the more so as you have the highest awards already.

Yes, I have. But I will be higher than all this. I won’t ask to award me. Am I insane? Damn them with their orders and medals. I am sure that if I start to apply for an award tomorrow, I will get it in 2-3 years. What do I need it for? It is insane. It is absurd. I am not in the age to ask the government for something!

My father, who signed the Reichstag and went all the way through Berlin, didn’t ask for any award. He was releasing capital by capital but returned to Odesa without any award. I am asking authorities and officials to give Olena Sanayeva The People’s Artists Award, she is an Outstanding Artists now. She is not given the award because she has said something wrong. But when she comes on stage, there is applause. She just comes, she doesn’t play yet. I will fight and ask for her. As for me… I don’t care whether I have three or four orders.

I’ll raise the Sentsov topic one more time as it hurts. What can Ukrainians do here and you (those who realise what is really happening) there to influence the situation and rescue Oleh so the innocent will not be put in Russian prisons?

I think there is a powerful wave of war in Russia now, this insanity with football will fade away and many things which were concealed will be revealed. I believe a new political and economic situation will come because the economy is paused now, businessmen are escaping, there are no investments. Suddenly, it turned out that welfare is a catastrophe, and education is more than just a catastrophe. Moscow theatre institutes used to be packed with people from Ukraine, 20 years ago, Ukrainians ran more than a half of Moscow institutes. I think that some landmark will happen soon because Putin’s approval rating is dramatically changing.

There is no time for all this, at least, our Sentsov doesn’t have it.

It is his basic human right because it is his choice. He knows what he is doing. It is his desire. That’s why what can we do? All the shows, dialogues which can be said about it, the majority of it is said by the Moscow intelligentsia. Moreover, everybody realises it is the same as it used to be with Savchenko. Absolutely. It is now, you have changed your attitude toward her. But she used to be a goddess, a heroine etc. It was the same story. People were fighting, signing, she was also starving – and she was released.

I haven’t seen Sentsov’s work. Some professional film critics said he had made a very interesting film. I haven’t seen it, but I do want.

Oleh has also written the book “Buy the book – it is funny”. If you want, I can bring it for you.

Has he written a book? Yes, I’d read it with pleasure. What is the book about?

It is a prose, I can gift it to you. Sentsov also writes plays…

Oh, I am fond of plays. I might stage it. I would begin staging it quickly…

***

As I had promised, I gifted the book to Mr Raihelgauz after the play of his theatre “Trench Coat” (Шинель). As for Sentsov’s plays, it is easy to find them. Who knows, the Theatre of the Modern Drama may soon have a new play…

Interview by Svitlana Bondar

Photo by Maryna Bandeliuk