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A New Kind of Joy: The Theatre of Dmitry Krymov

A Master thesis presented

by

Aida Octavia Rocci Ruiz

to

American Repertory Theatre/Moscow Art Theatre Institute for Advanced Theatre


Training at Harvard University

in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

for the Master In Fine Arts

in Dramaturgy and Theatre Studies

Harvard University

Cambridge, Massachusetts

May 26th, 2016


A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 2

Acknowledgements

In theatre, no project arises from a single person. This master thesis is no

exception. As such, I feel deeply indebted to everyone who has supported me in this

enterprise and I use this opportunity to express my gratitude. This project has been an

incredible, life-changing experience. First of all, I wish to thank my thesis advisors,

Anatoly Smeliansky and Julia Smeliansky for their wisdom, encouragement and trust,

and Ryan McKittrick, for seeing the potential in this project (and in me) and his guidance

to fulfill it. Thank you all for believing in me.

This project would not have been possible without the help of David Chambers.

Thank you for giving me wings, sharing not only your resources and insight but also your

deep love for Krymov. It was in our conversations that I found what I needed to

materialize this project. Thank you for being a mentor, an inspiration and a friend.

I also wish to thank all the people—now also dear friends— who have brought me

closer to Krymov: Inna Krymov, who welcomed me as a friend; Tatyana Khaikin, who

always has the right words, and Andrew Freeburg, who goes beyond imaginable to create

bridges. This paper was born out of those wondrous days at Yale as much as it was from

the child-like wonder I felt the first time I saw a Krymov production in Moscow. There

are many more people I feel grateful to: Liz Diamond, Liza Keshisheva, Katya Filippova,

Arthur Holmberg, Luke Harlan, Maria Smolnikova, Kevin Hourigan, and Sara Holdren.

This is the second thesis of mine Tanner Strickland patiently reads. Thank you,

Tanner, for your sharp brain, kind criticism and constant support and friendship.

And, of course, Dmitry Krymov, thank you. For all the magic you bring.
A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 3

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements ......................................................................................................... 2
Table of Contents............................................................................................................. 3
Introduction: Once Upon a Time In Russia ..................................................................... 4
Genealogy ........................................................................................................................ 7
The Birth of Designer’s Theatre .................................................................................... 25
Designer’s Theatre Reimagined .................................................................................... 48
Design As Action ............................................................................................ 50
Poetic Montage .............................................................................................. 62
Russian Soul for a Universal Language ........................................................ 67
Behind Designer’s Theatre: The Process....................................................................... 74
Conclusion: The Constant Act of Creation.................................................................... 83
Works Cited ................................................................................................................... 85
A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 4

Introduction: Once Upon a Time In Russia

June 22nd, 1997 marked the centenary of a very special meeting between

Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko that had changed theatre forever. In 1897

Konstantin Stanislavsky and Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko convened at Slavyanski

Bazar for eighteen hours and laid the founding principles for the Moscow Art Theatre. It

was there that Stanislavsky directed the premieres of Anton Chekhov’s plays, and began

the experiments that would lead to the establishment of his acting system. It was the

beginning of a new time, a new kind of theatre. In the century that followed, the auteur-

director became a key piece in the theatre scene in Russia. In the words of the dramaturg

and scholar Anatoly Smeliansky, “the main problems raised in the Russian theatre in the

second half of the century were raised by the directors” (xxi). Figures like Oleg Efremov,

Georgy Tovstonogov, Yury Lyubimov and Anatoly Efros continued the legacy that had

started in Slavyanski Bazar.

For the centenary, the Moscow Art Theatre, renovated after decades of stagnation,

organized a commemorative celebration of the legendary encounter. The titans of Russian

and world theatre, the great directors of the twentieth century, met for the first time since

the fall of the Soviet Union. It was an occasion to reflect on those very eventful hundred

years, but also, with the twenty-first century at the doorstep, to ideate the future of the

Russian theatre in the same way Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko had. Theatre

in Russia was facing unprecedented uncertainty. This time, the theatre geniuses spoke

about reforming the theatre schools, fostering a new generation of professionals who

could create a theatre based on spectacle, not words (Smeliansky, 213). What they could

not imagine is that five years later someone would come to embody those hopes.
A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 5

Someone literally born out of their theatrical tradition, but, as it often happens in any epic

tale, with an unexpected path.

In 2002, Dmitry Krymov returned to the theatre 17 years after the death of his

father, the directing titan Anatoly Efros. A well-known set designer, Krymov had turned

to painting and installation art in the 90s (Thomas “The Visual Poetics” 341). Then

unexpectedly, Krymov took on the roles of both scenographer and director in a new

production of Hamlet (Brown 169). It was the beginning of something new. Krymov

rejected the label of director, and even that of designer. “I am an artist; it is a particular

state of being” (Brown 169).

From that role of “artist” arises a new theatre movement. Krymov has challenged

every rule of theatre and theatre training and yet a label has snuck in to describe his

theatre: Театр Художника, “Artist’s Theatre” or, most commonly named “Designer’s

Theatre” (Vitvitskiy; Denisova; Freedman) ⎯ a theatre that finds its roots in the act of

creation, in spontaneity, in surprise. Krymov’s theatre embodies the constant search for

pure theatricality. With his laboratory, a company originally founded with his

scenography students (Freedman “Dmitry Krymov Designer's Theatre”), each of

Krymov’s plays constitutes a new experiment that defies the expectations of theatre

audiences. Borrowing from painting, music, arts and crafts, popular culture, and diverse

artistic forms, Krymov has created a unique theatrical vocabulary emerging from the

process of creation.

The concept of Designer’s Theatre holds an exciting promise. It would not be the

first time Russia yields a paradigm shift in the art world. Stanislavsky’s teachings

revolutionized the acting profession; Meyerhold’s staging ideas influenced directors


A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 6

worldwide; Eisenstein’s films pushed the development of cinema’s visual vocabulary. In

an inspiringly similar way, Krymov’s work transcends his nationality. His plays have

toured around the world, appealing to audiences across borders and cultures. Yet, because

of the limited reach of theatre and Krymov’s disavowal to write down and therefore settle

on a “system,” his process remains largely unknown.

The task of compiling a complete, overarching analysis of Dmitry Krymov’s work

for the English-speaking world seems futile: since Krymov’s work is engrained on the act

of creation, it feels especially alive and elusive of study. An all-encompassing treatise on

Dmitry Krymov would be akin to pinning up a live butterfly for study. Instead, this thesis

offers an overview of how Kyrmov’s work and the concept of Designer’s Theatre has

evolved, redefining itself and the rules of theatre with each production.
A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 7

Genealogy

Dmitry Anatolyevich Krymov⎯ names exemplify the importance in Russia of

tracing back, generation by generation, your origins. With patronymics, Russians carry

their fathers’ first names, and thus, their lineage. In the theatre, artistic heritage becomes

as important as the genetic one. Artists are indissolubly connected to their masters, and

consequently to their masters’ masters. Portraits of the artistic forefathers of the Moscow

Art Theatre cover its walls. As with a family, extensive family trees link each artist to a

master, up until the legendary roots: Stanislavsky, Nemirovich-Danchenko, Chekhov,

Tolstoy. The importance of genealogy in Russian theatre blends the lines of family and

art. Each theatre is an artistic family, and the value of your training is always in relation

to your heritage.

In the case of Dmitry Krymov, the lines of biological family and artistic family

are uniquely interwoven. His patronymic, Anatolyevich, points to an icon in the theatre:

his father, the director Anatoly Efros. Noticeably, Krymov does not share his father’s last

name⎯an attempt to keep him from the anti-Semitic attitudes that tormented his father

throughout his life. Instead, the last name Krymov points to another remarkable figure in

the Russian theatre: his mother, the scholar and critic Natalya Krymova. Furthermore,

through his parents’ legacy, the aforementioned masters of their masters, Krymov’s

artistic heritage is connected to the family tree of Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-

Danchenko. Departing from a straight line, Krymov did not train to be a director but a

technical set designer at the Moscow Art Theatre School. All of these extraordinary given

circumstances must be understood to fully grasp Krymov’s theatrical significance.


A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 8

Fig. 1 Family photo: Anatoly Efros, Dmitry Krymov and Natalya Krymova. Source:
Efros, Anatoly. The Joy Of Rehearsal: Reflections on Interpretation and Practice.
New York, NY: Peter Lang Publishing, 2006. 202.

Krymov recalls his first memories of theatre: “I remember the feeling of young

people who treated each other with great sense of humor [...]. It was a ball, a young

feeling. I wanted to be with them all the time. I didn’t understand I was the son of the

director” (“Conversation with Krymov"). Unlike most children, Krymov’s childhood

took place in the theatre, surrounded by actors. When Dmitry Krymov was born, October

10th 1954, his father Anatoly Efros had been invited by Maria Knebel to work at the

Central Children’s Theatre (Thomas “Introduction” 6). These two names––Maria Knebel

and the Central Children’s Theatre⎯carry special weight.

Maria Knebel was a pupil of Stanislavsky and an original member of the Second

Studio, which was later transformed into the Second Moscow Art Theatre. It was there

that Stanislavsky continued developing his acting technique, and, most importantly, his

directing technique: Active Analysis⎯the conceptual spine of Russian directing. But

after Lenin’s death, the artistic freedom of the early twentieth century came to an end. As
A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 9

the painter Aleksandr Gerasimov,

Chairman of the Union of Theatre

Artists, famously proclaimed in his

1939 speech, art had to be “realistic

in form and socialist in content”

(Bown). Socialist Realism thus

became the official art form of the

country, and other forms were

persecuted. In 1936 the government

dismantled the Second Moscow Art


Fig. 2 Family photo: Anatoly Efros and Dmitry Krymov. Source:
Web. 31 January. 2016.
Theatre and turned it into the Central http://www.efros.org/data/news/bfc0518a99299729d493997f588c9
25a.jpg
Children’s Theatre in an attempt to

eradicate the idealistic theories it promoted (Thomas “Introduction” 5). As a

consequence, Maria Knebel moved to the original Moscow Art Theatre. But she was

soon dismissed in 1949 because of “artistic disagreements” and the post-war anti-

Semitism. Most theatres avoided her. Then, in 1950 she was invited to join the Central

Children’s Theatre. In five years, Maria Knebel became the Artistic Director and returned

the company to its original calling, preserving, maintaining and disseminating

Stanislavsky’s teachings.

After Stalin’s death in 1953, Maria Knebel travelled to Ryazan to recruit a very

special former student. Anatoly Efros had singled himself out at the Lunarcharsky State

Institute for Theatre Arts (now GITIS), where Knebel was part of the directing faculty.

Before transferring to GITIS, he had created a group he called “The Realists,” defying the
A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 10

stiff method Socialist Realism had made out of Stanislavsky’s teachings. Soon, Efros

developed a reputation as a promising young director, praised for his unusual

expressivity, his work with actors and his deep psychological understanding of character

(Thomas “Introduction” 3). However, his refusal to join the Party and the anti-Semitic

atmosphere thwarted his directing career in Moscow and so he worked in Ryazan. As

Russia entered the beginning of “the Thaw,” a brief period of intellectual opening after

Stalin’s death, Maria Knebel pulled Efros out of the provinces. Back in Moscow, “in a

theatre intended for children, Efros began to destroy the aesthetics of the Soviet stage”

(Smeliansky 61).

Dmitry Krymov was born then, so his childhood took place while his father

worked at The Central Children’s Theatre. One of Efros’ most successful productions in

the ten years he spent in that theatre was My Friend Kolka! by Aleksandr Khmelik in

1959. The play offered a chilling recreation of fascist society through a story of children

in a playground. Anatoly Smeliansky recalls this show, “You felt you were watching a

Fig. 3 My Friend Kolka! Source: Van de Water, Manon. Moscow Theatres for Young
People: A Cultural History of Ideological Coercion and Artistic Innovation, 1917-2000.
New York NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. Print.
A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 11

new kind of psychological art that had rediscovered its theatrical roots” (61). Veering

away from detailed Realism, the production was set on a deconstructed school

playground, surrounded by a white canvas with washed-out children drawings. From the

vantage point of time, it is easy to notice parallels between Efros’ production and

Krymov’s theatrical aesthetics: the redefining of space and actor, the white canvas and

drawings, and the idea of children’s play. Krymov’s memories of the time at The Central

Children’s Theatre are of a “peak of absolute happiness” (qtd. in Denisova).

That peak was followed by another “temporary but acute peak of happiness in

Lenkom [theatre]” (Denisova). In 1964, as Khrushchev’s Thaw gave way to Brezhnev’s

“Era of Stagnation,” Efros was offered the position of Artistic Director of the Lenin

Komsomol (Lenkom) Theatre, which had been reduced to a neglected theatre with a

disillusioned acting company (Thomas “Introduction” 8). Efros brought the passion and

expression for which he had become famous at The Central Children’s Theatre to this

decayed atmosphere.

In Lenkom, Efros nurtured a blossoming company of actors. For him, working

with actors was a science in itself, a science based on love for those actors (Thomas

“Introduction” 38). Krymov believes that his father made every actor feel like an artist,

his insider, a collaborator (Mironova). Smelianksy observed, “He created his actors, who

then became mysteriously joined to him” (60). Some of them would follow him

throughout his career, such as Nikolai Volkov, who would eventually perform in Efros’

son’s directorial debut; a son who now remembers, “that was the feeling of a company of

young people. Maybe I’m subconsciously trying to recreate that in my company”

(“Conversation with Krymov”).


A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 12

The peak of Lenkom did not last long, unfortunately. Efros’ legendary but

controversial interpretation of The Seagull in 1966, which emphasized society’s betrayal

of the artist, and of Bulgakov’s Moliere, an attack on censorship, attracted the attention of

the authorities and were savaged by the critics. He was fired from Lenkom for

“ideological deficiencies” (Thomas “Introduction” 9) with the support of some bitter

company members he had not cast in his productions (Smeliansky 68). In 1967, at 42,

Efros suffered his first heart attack. Krymov would describe this period of his life as a

“short, terrible moment of trouble and exile” (Denisova).

In hard times, Efros worked even harder. That very same year, he joined the

Malaya Bronnaya Theatre, where he started rehearsals right away for a production of

Three Sisters that dialogued with his situation. According to Anatoly Smeliansky,

“everyone for whom the theatre means something probably has one production which for

them sums up the very sensation of theatre. For me, and I daresay my generation, that

production was Three Sisters” (68). Likewise, young Dmitry, who was thirteen at the

time, understood the personal value of his father’s work. “He did think that these

characters are in exile. He created this cold atmosphere with large tall windows: he was

trying to depict intelligentsia in exile. I remember when Vershinin came on stage and said

that he was from Moscow I started crying” (qtd. in Mironova). Instead of a house, birches

or garden, the action took place in a theatre, decorated in a similar style as the

architecture of MXAT. “You could say the action was unfolding in a theatre and the

demise of this house was also the demise of a true Theatre, above all the [Moscow] Art

Theatre.” In Three Sisters Efros dissolved the historical distance between Chekhov and

the contemporary audience, using his life as an artist to vitalize the text.
A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 13

Not surprisingly, the production was a scandal. The government, abetted by the

Moscow Art Theatre, closed Three Sisters. Krymov remembers the feeling of

powerlessness, “they shut down everything he was working on. They shut down Three

Sisters; they shut down other shows, just ‘because.’ They wouldn’t let him do anything.

They would shut everything down. [...] I don’t know how it all worked out; it’s some sort

of mystery” (qtd. in Mironova). Efros knew only one, very Chekhovian, way to keep

going: to work. But from then on he hardly ever addressed contemporary reality directly

(Smeliansky 112). With his company of faithful actors who had followed him into his

artistic exile, Efros returned to the classics.

At the Malaya Bronnaya, Efros’ official standing eventually recovered. He was

invited to work in other theatres, including the Moscow Art Theatre and the Taganka

Theatre, and received merited accolades. He was even allowed to work outside of the

USSR, notably at the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis. He produced masterpieces such as

The Marriage and The Cherry Orchard, in which he unlocked the humanity of the texts

and navigated the discrepancy between beauty and reality (Smeliansky 118-122). In the

Malaya Bronnaya, Efros created his son’s favorite performance even today: Brother

Alyosha, based on The Brothers Karamazov (“Meeting With Director Dmitry Krymov”).

Despite Efros’ second heart attack in 1975, “it was a long and happy time of

performances at the Bronnaya,” remembers Krymov (qtd. in Denisova).

Krymov was 13 when his father started working at Malaya Bronnaya. In the 17

years Efros spent there, Krymov grew up to become a professional set designer. He

started working for his father when he was only sixteen. “When I first worked with my

father, there was no ceremony, we just did the show. Othello. I did not understand the
A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 14

terms of the new game. I was sixteen. Sixteen-year-olds—except maybe for geniuses,

who can perceive more than they have lived through—cannot create a good show. They

can create a show at their own level. Like wine labeled “young,” kind of tasty but under a

different category” (qtd. in Denisova). Efros waited for this wine to mature. Krymov

jokes that eventually his father took his 501st version of his design, in a process that

lasted 5 years. In 1976, Krymov graduated from the Moscow Art Theatre School with a

double diploma in Stage Design and Theatre Technology, and Othello premiered.

Othello was the beginning of Krymov’s design career. For twelve years his name

appeared alongside his father’s in the programs. Krymov designed twelve of Efros’

shows, including Williams’s Summer and Smoke, Molière’s Tartuffe, Tolstoy’s The

Living Corpse, and the acclaimed production of Turgenev’s A Month In The Country

(Thomas “My Manner of Telling the Story” 83-84). For A Month In The Country, which

premiered in 1977, Krymov designed a metal gazebo with benches that would rotate like

a carousel. An old carriage, with a puppet as a driver, stood nearby. The production was

an elegy to passing youth, a yearning for what we have lost. At the denouement, the

beautiful stage was noisily dismantled by stagehands. “The magic circle of the estate was

broken. [...] The demise of this cozy world was expressed by destroying the theatrical

illusion” (Smeliansky 123). Working for Efros was a source of pride for young Krymov.

In an interview, Krymov offered an anecdote of when he was struggling with the design

for one of his father’s shows. After a long night of working, he left the model on the

kitchen table. When he woke up, he found a note from his father “Dimka, it seems there

is something in this.” Krymov reflects, “The feeling of happiness from that moment I've

remembered for life” (qtd. in Rydler).


A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 15

Fig. 4 A Month in the Country. Source: Efros, Anatoly. Месяц в деревне. 1983. Film

Efros’ happy days at Malaya Bronnaya drew to an end. “Then came a terrible

time: the betrayal of the disciples and the destruction of the theatre. And Taganka...and

all that” recalls Krymov (qtd. in Denisova). He was working for his father when things at

Malaya Bronnaya started to go awry. Smeliansky explains, “The serf-owning theatrical

system now showed his deadly power” (124). The managing director, who had influential

connections in the government, had begun to resent Efros and incited a campaign against

him in the theatre. Despite his sensitive heart condition, they moved Efros’ office to the

fourth floor, where he could hear the Communist Party headquarters’ anti-Semitic

comments (Thomas “Introduction” 13). But what really affected Efros was the way his

family of actors, poisoned in this environment, turned against him. Around this time,

Smeliansky bumped into Efros on the street by the theatre, and the director’s deep pain
A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 16

gushed out, “I don’t believe any theatre people, any longer. The circle has fallen apart,

they all lie through their teeth” (qtd. in Smeliansky 125).

In this complicated political atmosphere of 1983, Yuri Lyubimov, another

celebrated theatre director of the time, and a friend of Efros, made an ill-fated comment

when he was abroad. As a result, he was dismissed from his own theatre, the Taganka

Theatre, and stripped of his citizenship. Efros, who had worked at the Taganka and liked

the actors there, was then offered his friend’s position as Artistic Director. It is said he

held passionate discussions with friends and family about this dilemma, but because of

the situation at Malaya Bronnaya, he had no choice but to accept the job in 1984

(Denisova). Efros convinced himself he was going to carry on Lyubimov’s legacy.

Smeliansky describes the situation: “Deprived of his own family, he had come to save

someone else’s. The job was booby-trapped and he blew himself up” (125).

The Tanganka Theatre company rebelled. Lyubimov accused his former friend of

betrayal. Efros was considered a traitor, a lackey of the government. Artists left the

theatre, including the cutting-edge designer David Borovsky, who had worked with Efros

and had a significant influence on Krymov’s style. Efros’ car was vandalized, and his

trademark sheepskin coat was cut up with anti-Semitic slurs (Thomas “Introduction” 14).

In these harsh conditions, Efros buried himself in work. “Efros began to work like mad,

harder than he had for years. He opened one new production after another. [But] Efros

was working in a dead space, in a situation of social ostracism,” Smeliansky explains

(125). His son worked with him in three shows, including the last one, Moliere’s

Misanthrope in 1986. It was a highly autobiographical production that transmitted Efros’


A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 17

disillusionment with the world (Smeliansky 125). The set was almost empty with some

rehearsal chairs and a giant mirror positioned upstage where the audience was reflected.

Fig. 5 The Misanthrope. Source: Efros, Anatoly. “Мизантроп.” 1987. Film.

It was at one of the performances of The Misanthrope that Mikhail Gorvachev,

the new leader of the country who would inspire the opening up and eventual demise of

the Soviet Union, talked to Efros. Lyubimov was being allowed to come back. Efros

signed a petition with the actors to support his return. But that left Efros with nowhere to

go. Six months later, in January 1987, Efros died of his third heart attack in his

apartment. Many things followed: the return of Lyubimov, the fall of the Berlin wall, the

end of the USSR, the break-up of the Taganka Theatre, and his son’s renunciation of

theatre.

After a very successful career as a set designer, for his father and many other

directors, Krymov quit in 1990. He does not blame the decision on his father’s traumatic
A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 18

last years. “Simply, dad died and I grew bored,” he reflects. He had always wanted to be

an artist, so in the middle of the economic meltdown of the 90’s, Krymov turned to

painting for a living. “I’d always had a sort of ego issue, I guess, about being an artist or

an aspiration to be an artist. An artist in my view was someone who talks directly to the

gods, not to a director but to the gods”

(qtd. in Sellar 21). An artist friend took

some of Krymov’s drawings to a show

in Paris. The money he got from their

sale was more than what he was making

in the theatre, and Krymov made his

mind to change his life (Thomas “My

Manner of Telling the Story” 84). But at

the root of Krymov’s decision there was

a deep disillusionment with theatre.

Krymov remembers, “I dramatically

changed my social circle. I went so far I Fig. 6 Krymov,Dmitry. Rome. According to N. Gogol’s story.
1990. Drawing.
could not go to the theatre, for instance.

It was unpleasant” (qtd. in Denisova). Thus Krymov broke with his past life. “For me, it

was the beginning of a very long and hard career path. It was not my path, that is not the

path of the theatre, but absolutely different. Nobody knew me in the art world; nobody

knew my father or about our performances together” (qtd. in Thomas “My Manner of

Telling the Story” 84). For twelve years, Krymov developed as a successful painter.
A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 19

Krymov’s unique painting style stood out for some of the features that would

eventually influence his theatrical aesthetics. As with his theatre, Krymov experimented

with technique, blending the traditional boundaries between art forms. In his paintings,

Krymov took life outside of the canvas, sometimes by means of collage and assembly,

others by highly expressive bi-

dimensional and

monochromatic mosaics. His

paintings and installations are

both simple and lyrically

transparent. The visual rhythm

and the use of popular themes,

such as Gogol stories or

bullfighting, made Krymov’s


Fig. 7 Krymov, Dmitry. On the Couch. 1995. Oil on canvas.
work incredibly theatrical. Labeled as “Neo-Impressionism,” his paintings play with line,

color and texture to create delicate choreographies where the interaction between figure

and light becomes especially dynamic and unexpected to create visual poetry.

However, the label “Neo-impressionism” does not fully capture the psychological

depth of Krymov’s artwork. In his imagery and themes, Krymov created oneiric worlds

reminiscent of Chagall or late Picasso. There is a strong tendency for retrospection in

Krymov’s work. His father, inspired by the Italian Neorealism that reached Russia after

the Thaw, had reflected on his life and the role of the artist with his plays. In a similar

way, Krymov’s paintings grew out of his own life. He painted a series of self-portraits

showing him painting, or resting from painting, which depict the vulnerability of the
A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 20

artist. He also opened the window to his personal life through his portraits with his wife,

Inna. These scenes, showing the most intimate, silent moments of life can be compared to

the theatrical experience of being witness to someone’s story as it is performed.

Fig. 8 Krymov, Dmitry. Portrait of Pope John Paul II, 2002. Mixed
media.

Krymov’s painting career was very successful. His paintings and drawings form

part of public and private collections, including Moscow’s Tretyakov Gallery and

Pushking Fine Arts Museum, Petersburg’s State Art Museum and State Theatrical

Museum, London’s Victoria and Albert Museum and Washington’s World Bank

Collection. His portrait of Pope John Paul II is part of the permanent collection of the

Vatican Gallery. Although Krymov left painting soon after he came back to theatre, his
A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 21

time as an artist was not a hermetic period with no connection to his theatrical life; the

process of a painter still informs Krymov’s creative process as a director.

“My return to the theatre was completely random. And for a year after it happened

I didn’t even really tell anyone, not my wife, not even myself, that I’d come back to the

theatre” (qtd. in Sellar 21). An actor friend, Valery Garkalin had proposed to Krymov

that he direct a performance. Krymov was interested in working with actors but did not

take it seriously. But maybe sensing something interesting was happening Garkalin

pushed Krymov onwards (Freedman “Dmitry Krymov”). Krymov ambitiously chose a

new translation of Hamlet as his directorial debut, focusing his direction on the theme of

fathers and sons. “I invited the actors who had been the very first actors who had acted in

my father’s work. I wanted to feel like a son in that sense too” (qtd. in Sellar 21).

Krymov had this idea, but he had also doubts. In 2002, Krymov went to visit his

mother⎯who was already ill. Natalya Krymova had already impacted her son’s life when

she helped him to get into the Moscow Art Theatre School so that he would not have to

enter the military, which gave him the training to become a set designer (Mak). But this

time Krymov went to his mother with his idea for Hamlet. “‘Do you think that I should

just set off on this venture on the basis of this idea?’ and she said, ‘Yes, yes you can’”

(qtd. in Sellar 21).

Dmitry Krymov’s mother, Natalya Krymova was a staple of Russian Theatre at

the time. Her idealistic and critical spirit, and her strong character, made her into one of

the most important theatre critics and historians of the time, independently of her role as

Efros’ wife. She started publishing in Правда when she graduated from GITIS⎯the

same year she married Efros. By the time her son, Dmitry Krymov, was born, she was
A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 22

writing essays and reviews for the reputed journal Театр, where she eventually joined the

editorial board. “With a caring and demanding love, she wrote about the more-or-less

talented life of the theatre,” Sidorov notes. Her career took her to work in radio and

television, to publish three volumes of profile pieces and a theatre appreciation textbook,

and to teach at GITIS (Thomas “The Visual Poetics” 345-346). As a writer and teacher,

she believed, “we have to write about our teachers. Write gently” (Sidorov). Faithful, as

her husband, to the original spirit of Stanislavsky, she edited the works of Maria Knebel

and Michael Chekhov⎯in a time where their teachings were banned it is thanks to

Natalya Krymova’s books that they survived. Once Natalya’s beloved husband died, she

preserved his memory and teachings in a similar way, preparing his books for

publication.

Natalya Krymova’s supportive role in Efros’ life cannot be overstated. Anatoly

Efros and Natalya Krymova met while they were students at GITIS. Natalya was

studying at GITIS to become a theater critic. She was also part of the Realists group, and

as such shared the ideas Efros fought for. Natalya would tell her son their remarkable

story, “A mutual friend introduced them. They met at a concert. My dad asked her: Are

we going to get married right away or wait till we graduate?” (qtd. in Mironova) Efros’

bold tactic worked—after they graduated, their marriage only got delayed by Stalin’s

death⎯although Natalya claimed she fell in love with how Efros played Malvolio

(Krymova.org). From that day on, Natalya and Efros established a system, a custom that

will get them though the rough times to come. They had a code. They would sign their

letters with “/.//.//,” they would knock the pattern on tables, show it as five fingers. It

stood for “Я те-бя люб-лю” (I love you). Natalya once said, “We needed the sign. It was
A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 23

saving our lives. “/.//.//”. Say it. Show it. And then continue living” (Krymova.org). The

theatre historian, Evgeny Sidorov, recalls how when the anti-Semitic audiences were

shouting, “Do not touch the Russian classics! Go back to your country!” to Efros,

“Natasha was the conscience of [their] little community, countering the rise of a

xenophobic force in the writer’s environment.”

With his mother’s support, Dmitry Krymov’s Hamlet opened at the Stanislavsky

Theatre in 2002. Krymov distanced himself from the role of set designer by using an

empty stage with two doors cut out of the back wall. Nikolai Volkov, an actor who

became famous with Efros, was cast as both Claudius and the Ghost. In line with

Krymov’s original idea, critics saw in this casting choice a parallelism between the play

and real life, between Krymov and the “Ghost” of his father. Critic Marina Tokareva

even called her review “Directed by Hamlet.” However, the production was considered a

theatrical failure, maybe because of the idea that originated it (Shulgat 39).

In Kyrmov’s words “the play was canned by the critics. And it was very insulting

criticism” (qtd. in Sellar 21). He acknowledges the daring of his project:

“In retrospect there was probably a lot of truth to what the critics said [...] Of

course it’s naïve to think you can direct a play based on Hamlet as your first

directing experience ever and get it right and do it well. But at the same time I

think the critics were just dismissing me out of principle because I had just

stepped up and done this thing without being a director. So their reaction just

made me angry and obstinate and made me want to direct another play” (qtd. in

Sellar 21).
A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 24

This was the beginning of Krymov’s directing career. At the time, he refused to

call himself a director. “I do not like it when I am called the director. I didn’t study; I do

not want to appropriate another’s trade. [...] The director was my dad” (qtd. in Brown

169). But Krymov saw in his father’s work something that could not be taught in a

director’s training:

“It's a secret. It's not just artistry; it's a manner of living, a manner of doing

things. Something secret goes into the work. [...] You can't teach something like

that. You have to know literature, to start [...]; you yourself must then love your

mother, and lose her. You need to do all of this to understand what it is you want

to say. Then the artistry is already there.” (qtd. in Shea).

Krymov did in fact lose his mother a year after Hamlet premiered. He was well on his

way following his father steps. That had never been Dmitry Kyrmov’s goal: “I accepted

the fact that the secret would be lost. Fortunately, perhaps miraculously, I never went in

search of my father's secret, because secrets in theater change. [...] Maybe I want to

achieve what he did, getting an audience to experience specific things, but I go at it in a

different way. Or maybe I needed to be a set designer first, then a painter, in order to

stumble upon my approach” (qtd. in Freedman “Dmitry Krymov”). Kyrmov’s approach

is formally very different from his father. It was indeed born out of the path he took. “I

never thought that I’d end up directing. But I am very glad to have found something with

my stage designers and my actors that, in spirit, corresponds to [my father’s] work, but in

form is completely different. I really hope that if he could see the work I do now he

would laugh, in a sort of benevolent way, and would say something like, “Look at you

now” (qtd. in Sellar 20).


A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 25

The Birth of Designer’s Theatre

Krymov’s appearance as a director challenged the status of the theatre director

role. According to Dr. Bryan Brown, from the University of Exeter, the challenge was

deeper: “Krymov presents a challenge to perceptions of Russian theatre culture itself. [...]

At its core, this debate is about aesthetics, training and the culture that supports a

particular style of theatre” (169). Indeed in 2002, Krymov not only redefined who could

be a director, but also changed the rules of the game for theatre pedagogy. Krymov had

always wanted to teach so approached Sergei Barkhin, founder and Head of the Stage

Design program at GITIS to become an Assistant Instructor. Barkhin invited him to join.

“He asked me to do it because my father was a teacher at GITIS, my mother was a

teacher at GITIS, and therefore I should do so too” (qtd. in Thomas “My Manner of

Telling the Story” 84).

The echoes of that 1997 centennial party at MXAT, of the call for a new style of

theatre based on a new kind of education resonate in this story. It was actually Yuri

Lyubimov, the artistic director of Taganka Theatre whom Efros so fatally replaced, who

posited that the change in theatre had to be based on a change in the theatre schools.

Unwittingly, Krymov’s blooming directing career and his “Designer Theatre” came

precisely out of his radical new teaching approach.

Krymov had been teaching stage design at GITIS for several years when a group

of students came up to him for advice. As part of their curriculum, design students had to

stage little scenes, this time on the theme of Pinocchio. Krymov helped them without the

professor of the course knowing (Sellar 22). Maybe Krymov also was unaware of the
A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 26

repercussions of what was just taking place. The little scenes turned into a show,

Buratino. Adrian Giurgea, director of the theatre program at Colgate University,

remembers this production:

“There was no stage: The usual studio clutter was pushed aside to make way for a

small playing area. The story was told with objects that transformed themselves

constantly into other objects. From time to time, drawings were made with black

gouache on cardboard, very fast, as if drawing on water. Nothing remained fixed.

[It] was an act of pure theater” (145-146).

In Giurgea’s description, traces of Krymov’s painting past and some distant reference to

the design of Efros’ My Friend Kolka! seem to arise, but also something new, a new way

of theatricality springing from wordless live creation. Krymov realized it too, “When I

saw this performance a day later, I was absolutely struck with it because that was the

birth of a new language. Because this new theatrical language [...] was literally born in

my workshop over the course of two hours from 11pm to 1 am in a really tired state”

(qtd. in Sellar 22).

After that, Krymov could not get enough. With his own masterskaya (a graduating

class who studies under a master for their four years of training), he based his teaching on

getting “the pulse of real theatre.” Krymov found that the traditional set design curricula

lacked three essential elements: “how to think as an artist does; how to experience stage

space psychophysically; and how to work collectively toward an original performance

before the public” (Thomas “The Visual Poetics” 342). He wanted his students to know

how to make their design ideas come alive, and he believed that the way to do so was to

learn through experience. “Real theatre occurs during rehearsals, and designers never
A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 27

spend any time at rehearsals. When the model is ready their job is finished” (qtd. in

Thomas “My Manner of Telling the Story” 85). Krymov started doing études, structured

improvisational exercises, with them, just as actors normally do. Études constitute the

building blocks of Active Analysis, the directorial approach Stanislavsky developed in his

last years, and thanks to artists like Maria Knebel and Anatoly Efros and the scholar work

of Natalya Krymova, is now at the core of Russian theatre.

Continuing the work he had done with Buratino, he offered the students to put

together another performance together: Not-Yet-Fairy-Tales (also translated as Untold

Fairy Tales) based on Russian folk tales. The title is

a joke on the situation: “We wrote everything there

with ‘not-yet—‘not-yet director,’‘not-yet-actor,’

‘not-yet-designer.’” (qtd. in Freedman “Dmitry

Krymov”). The performance emphasized the dark

nature of fairy tales, with a surprising spin. For

instance, greedy children kill Little Red Riding

Hood. Stylistically, it was just as surprising. The

performers were designers, but they didn’t

act⎯they acted as designers on stage, using their

bodies as canvases that would then transform them


Fig, 9 Not-Yet-Fairy-Tales. Source:
krymov.org
into characters. A few red strokes on a performer’s

arms would become a mouth (see figure 9) (Foux) or, from two performers embracing a

new character would appear (Freedman “Dmitry Krymov”). The integration of design
A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 28

and action in a live performance, theatrical painting and surprise, all now characteristic of

Krymov’s vocabulary, were starting to emerge.

Buratino and Untold Fairy Tales, presented as year-end projects at GITIS, were

the seed that would eventually bloom into a theatre company with designers as

performers and co-creators of the work. It was the beginning of Designer’s Theatre.

“Everybody wanted to be in this together, that was the real starting point. Then

everything else came — we started to come up with concrete ideas. [...] I added a

couple of my own, not knowing exactly how this would end up. I mean, we had

no theatre, we had no money. [...] We were imagining to do some kind of

performance; maybe go to Europe and drive a little bus around, just perform in

little squares in all these European cities.” (qtd. in Shea).

But when the avant-garde director Anatoly Vasiliev saw the performances, he came up to

Krymov with an unprecedented proposal. He offered a home in his reputed School of

Dramatic for this new theatre collective composed of set designers Art. The performances

would be included in the theater’s repertory.

“This was something that was very unusual on [Vasiliev’s] part; he never invited

anyone to come work at his theatre. Not even his students. [...] His theater was

like an insular monastery. [...] We were essentially invited into the inner

sanctuary. And in our naïveté we accepted this gift, we said thank you and we

began working.” (qtd. in Sellar 22).

Dmitry Krymov’s Theatre Laboratory was thus born: a company intrinsically tied with

the professional and artistic growth of Krymov’s design students and Krymov himself.
A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 29

Krymov’s radical approach to teaching unavoidably met some resistance in a

country where education is prescribed by the state (Thomas “The Visual Poetics” 341).

Barkhin, famous for his postmodernist designs in the 70’s and 80’s, who had initially

supported Krymov’s productions, began to oppose them on the basis that the students

were not learning the required basics (Thomas “The Visual Poetics” 343). The faculty’s

main concern, which Giurgea initially shared and vocalized, was that Krymov, “driven by

personal demons” or in his ambition to become a director like his father, was exploiting

his students to a certain degree (Giurgea 148). Krymov responded that he was teaching

his students to be artists in the high-pressure, collective environment of professional

theatre, where their work would be scrutinized by paying audiences. Despite the

criticism, students lined up to be part of his course.

Krymov’s work with his first designer class of 12 students can be considered the

first period of Krymov Laboratory, the one that coined the term Designer’s Theatre, as

Viktor Beryozkin called it (Freedman “Dmitry Krymov”). The Laboratory consisted only

of designer-performers who would create the piece collectively with Krymov. He, as their

mentor, nurtured their individuality and creativity, but his vision was not the only source

(Brown 171). The company shared authorship and Krymov, as a stage director, would

structure the performance and create the rhythm and the tempo (Thomas “My Manner of

Telling the Story” 86). Krymov reflects on this process, “we would select a theme

together and it was very important to have it together. And then we would come with the

play around it” (qtd. in Brown 172). In this way, the company created three more pieces:

Three Sisters (2004), based on King Lear; Sir Vantes: Donkey Hot (2005), loosely based
A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 30

on Cervantes’ character; and Demon: A View From Above (2006), inspired by the

Lermontov’s poem.

Fig. 10 The beginning of Donkey Hot. Source: krymov.org


Ten years after their premiere, both Donkey Hot and Demon are still played in the

School of Dramatic Art repertory. The repertory system in Russia can keep shows

running for years⎯ normally several performances a month for newer shows and

sometimes only once a year for legendary productions. A notable example is that of the

Moscow Art Theatre production of The Blue Bird, which premiered in 1908 during

Stanislavsky’s times, and is still in repertory at the Gorky Moscow Art Theatre1. For this

reason, new audience members are able to witness Donkey Hot, still played by designer-

performers, despite the fact that most of them left the company to pursue careers in set

design. The show, under an hour, is not a retelling of the Spanish classic. Krymov Lab

used another two other sources: Gogol’s Diary of A Madman, and The Act of the medical

examination of the prisoner Daniil Ivanovich Yuvachev Harms (Foux). The performance

1
In 1987, Artistic Director of the Moscow Art Theatre, Oleg Efremov, in an
A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 31

therefore explores the figure of Quixote as an outcast⎯a creative genius or a madman⎯

through a series of highly visual and mainly wordless episodes.

In the empty set of the School of Dramatic Art’s upper floor, the audience is

vividly transported to Spain by designers taking sand out of their costumes (see figure

10). La Mancha is painted with rough gouache strokes on cardboard, and the famous

windmills appear as rotating abaci stuck into the landscape. Quixote is a giant amidst

midgets⎯performers acting on their knees⎯who ostracize him. With a clever design, the

character of Quixote is played by an actor on the shoulders on another actor. The design

is consequently fully integrated in the action⎯ it precedes and influences the action

(Krymov, personal interview).

The eloquent imagery keeps the

audience’s attention not only through

its visual appeal but also because of its

involvement with dramatic action. For

instance, there is a remarkable shadow

show where the source of light moves,

changing the shadow shapes and

discovering new angles. Design

choices provide moments of high

theatrical tension, in which the

audience is made aware of the fragility

of the conventions, yet the actors Fig. 11 Donkey Hot. smocking Source:
http://ptj.spb.ru/archive/42/premieres-42/don-kixot-forever/
A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 32

commit fully to the rules. It is hard not to hold your breath in wonder when Quixote’s

bottom actor’s arms light a cigarette or place glasses on the face of the top actor (figure

11). These scenes inadvertently create a relationship between characters and audience,

subtly building up into a story outside of the linearity rules. When, at the end, Quixote’s

body is transformed into a puppet, taken apart, sent across the world and buried several

times, the audience is moved, but at no time was there an awareness of explicit narrative.

The play’s impact is internal.

While Krymov and his laboratory were developing their next show, Demon: View

From Above, the situation at the School of Dramatic Art changed. Anatoly Vasiliev, the

founder of the theatre, had originally conceived it as a laboratory setting for theatrical

experiments. The school was an ideal incubator for new ideas. But because of Vasiliev’s

personality, it had become more like a sanctuary, a mysterious institution where

audiences were not always welcome. The Moscow authorities, which subsidize the arts,

began a campaign to retake the original building on Povarskaya 20. A messy affair

started in which the School of Dramatic Art ended up being relocated to its second⎯and

current⎯location in Sretenka street (built in 2001). Vasiliev went into voluntary exile in

France. “It was a very dramatic time,” Krymov remembers (qtd. Sellar 22).

Although Vasiliev had approved the production and drafts of Demon (Sellar 22),

the situation triggered Krymov to pause this production and create his first independent

project since the creation of the Laboratory: The Auction. This was also his first venture

into Chekhov. Efros’ productions of Chekhov had been highly polemical but

revolutionary. In the words of Anatoly Smeliansky “[Efros] threw open Chekhov’s text to

the twentieth century” (70). In a new controversial time in the twenty-first century, his
A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 33

son turned to four of

Chekhov’s plays to express

themes of loss, displacement

and departure (Freedman

“Dmitry Krymov Designer's

Theatre” 14), maybe

recognizing the taste of exile

Efros had found in his first

Three Sisters. In The Auction,

which premiered in 2006, the

old School of Dramatic Art

plays the role of the cherry

orchard. The Chekhovian Fig. 12 The Auction. Source: http://gctm.livejournal.com/5949.html

characters circle around a

model with the name “Povarskaya 20” on the roof. They discuss how they are about to

lose their home and, inspired by mementos, reminisce about their time there. In a striking

image, the Prozorov sisters, represented by mannequins, are wrapped in plastic bags and

buried along with the model. For the first time, Krymov left no doubt about his opinion

on a current topic. At the same time, though, this play evokes deeply human themes, such

as home and loss, that keep it relevant and still in the repertory.

Demon: A View From Above is the last show Krymov created with his first

class⎯and the culmination of the primordial Designer’s Theatre. In the words of theatre

historian Maria Punina: “[in Demon] Krymov has collected all the best discoveries and
A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 34

ideas contained in Untold Fairy Tales, Donkey Hot, and Auction, and taken them to a new

level” (qtd. in Thomas “Demon” 417). Inspired by the unusual Globus space in the new

building for the School of Dramatic Art, an octagonal tower, the performance explored

the idea of looking at life from above. Mikhail Lermontov’s poem Demon, one of the

masterpieces of European Romantic literature, served as the source text for that purpose.

In the poem, Krymov was moved by the objective yet nostalgic distanced view of others’

lives. His students, on the other hand, were inspired by the idea of flying up to hope and

dreams (Thomas “Demon” 418). “Thus was our show born from the dream of flight.

Lermontov’s poem is an excuse to look at our life from above,” Krymov explains in the

program (krymov.org). Demon explores these ideas in relation to the theme of artist

versus society. The performance spans world art and culture, and thus, art comes to life

on stage under the view of the demon and the audience.

The show unexpectedly begins when a mass of black rags thumps on to the stage.

The performers poke at it in order to make sure it is not dangerous, and then proceed to

spread the black mass out to reveal a huge black demon. Through a system of ropes and

pulleys, the Demon is lifted to the dome of the tower, where it will look at the

performance from above. The demon will not play any other role; it is not a Chekhov gun

ready to be fired but just an objective witness that shares the experience with the

spectators. As the performers gaze up to the Demon, the floor under their feet starts to

descend to the basement. From then on, the performance will take place in the basement,

and the audience will peer over the galleries’ railings (Thomas “Demon” 418-419). The

show takes advantage of the architecture of the space, and through live transformation of

the initial conditions, shifts the audience’s attention to the vertical. In two simple moves,
A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 35

Krymov manages to present the rules of the game (surprise and transformation) and the

main idea behind the show (an objective view).

Fig. 13 Demon—A View From Above. Prologue: the actors gather around what will become the demon. Source:
krymov.org

In the basement, the floor where the performers stand turns out to be a book of

large pieces of paper. Painted on that paper, each image turns into dramatic action as it

transforms into new metaphors to tell a story: the history of art and, by extension,

humanity. The first scene springs from the idea of a transformational historical overview.

It consists of a projected film where, through childlike drawings that transform from one

to another, the audience is taken into an epic of creation and destruction around the

world. A snake morphs into train tracks, then rivers, valleys, landscapes, oceans, which

then show warlike ships and battles intermingling with images from everyday life⎯”a

kind of summary visual encyclopedia of the human condition, without fear or favour but
A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 36

colored mainly by sadness” (Thomas “Demon” 420). The film gives way to the live

artistic creation, as the performers enter with brushes and paint a scene of Adam and Eve,

amidst which a chord/snake drops. When the original sin is committed, a performer

violently thrusts an apple

through the paper figures,

ripping them apart. The

creation on stage is not

just an expression of

aesthetic pleasure or

cunning; it is charged

with meaning and


Fig. 14 Demon––A View From Above. Scene 9. In a transitional moment, the
performers encircle a musician in the middle in a threatening way, destroying the
emotion. art around him. Source: krymov.org

Krymov’s aesthetics are transitory in nature—an impactful image is created in

front of your eyes, and then it’s gone. Each night the show is different, because each

image will be painted in a slightly different way. The process of creation thus lies at the

core of the dramatic action. Scenes follow as the paper gets torn away to leave space for

new images. Sometimes performers are part of the canvas—their faces inserted in the

paper, and their story painted around them. Other times, the scenes grow out of paint or

objects that transform into each other. The audience journeys from the Bible, through

Van Gogh, Russian writers, the space revolution and Laika, Jazz and Georgian songs, to

the story of Tamara (from Lermontov’s poem) that culminates in a wedding. In the last

scene, right after the celebration, a cord is brought into the space again, which transforms

into a facial silhouette of the Demon himself. When Tamara touches it, she gets wrapped
A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 37

Fig. 15 Demon⎯A View From Above. Scene 8, part 2. Tamara, in her coming-of-age story,
learns how to ride a bicycle under the gaze of her parents. Painting, performers and costumes
create a theatrical collage where two-dimensional images and three-dimensional images interact.
Source: http://www.theartnewspaper.ru/posts/79/

in the paper. This moment, according to Professor James Thomas, from Wayne State

University, “[is] the most concrete illustration of [the performance’s] main idea—the

eternal striving of the artist for freedom against all odds” (“Demon” 427). In the epilogue,

the performers, lying down side by side on a circle, are lifted again to the original

position, and gaze up at heaven and wave the scraps of paper in their hands to the demon

hanging above them, and the audience.

There are two moments of Demon—A View From Above that stand out in reviews

(Freedman “Dmitry Krymov’s Designer’s Theater”; Thomas “Demon”). The first one,

corresponding to scene 4, is a beautiful instance of live artistic transformation on stage. In

this scene, LPs and yellow rubber gloves are tossed around the floor. Using masking tape,

the performers connect these random elements, recreating Van Gogh’s famous

sunflowers (see fig. 16). When a performer signs ‘Van Gogh,’ the others put on carnival

masks that make them look like crows and attack the painting, looking for the seeds of
A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 38

the flowers. This is a remarkable

example of Krymov’s aesthetics:

ordinary objects transforming the

audience’s initial perception and

gaining extraordinary lyrical

meaning.

The second moment, which

comes right after the crows, starts

with the drawing of a house the

performers name “Yasnaya

Palyana.” It is a child misspelling of

Yasnaya Polnaya, Tolstoy’s estate.


Fig. 16 Demon—A View From Above. Scene 4. Van Gogh’s
sunflowers. Source: http://www.teatr.ru/th/perf-info.asp?perf=17935
Soon enough a bearded figure breaks

through the paper door—Tolstoy himself. He wets his shoes in ink and begins walking,

leaving footprints, towards the train station while an actual recording of Tolstoy is heard

saying “one can’t live like this” over and over. He lies by the train tracks, and the

performers put the masters’ house on top of his head—a poetic recreation of Tolstoy’s

death in 1910. A crowd, represented by painted stick figures, gathers. Growing in

number, they become a black mass that somehow respects those footprints. Tolstoy

protrudes as body surrounded by flat paintings, larger even than the station⎯a visual

metaphor for the artist in contrast to society. With the simple tools of scale and

dimensionality, Krymov creates an impactful image that bridges reality and his poetic

world.
A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 39

The early conception of Designer’s Theatre was based on the designers as co-

creators and performers of the work. Together with his first class, Krymov developed a

new kind of theatricality based on live artistic creation on stage, childlike play and

spontaneity. In Krymov’s theatre the art-making process became magically exposed for

the audience to see. Krymov remembers those first years with his first class as “the

happiest time [...] a beautiful childhood” (qtd. in Brown 172). But things changed after

Demon premiered in 2006.

“I didn’t actually change anything. It was the people that changed. My first

beloved class, with whom I put together those three pieces, had graduated and was gone,”

Krymov reflects. His students went on to have their own careers as designers or left

theatre entirely. Only two stayed, as designers, on Krymov’s Lab: Vera Martynova and

Maria Tregunova. At the same time, Krymov’s controversial teaching methods prompted

one radical change in GITIS. Krymov was transferred into the directing program to

become head of the new “Experimental Theatre Project” where stage-design, acting and

directing students were allowed to participate (Thomas “The Visual Poetics” 344).

Krymov knew what had worked before with his students might no longer work. He said

to his class, “I do not know how to teach you. Let’s learn how together” (qtd. in Thomas

“My Manner of Telling the Story” 85). Krymov Lab started to have actors perform in its

productions instead of designers. New⎯but no less promising⎯ days were ahead.

Krymov has reflected extensively on how his work with actors compared to his

work with his design students. He rapidly sensed that working with actors required

different strategies; mainly, he could not show an actor what to do in the same way he

could with a designer. “He has to do it for himself. An actor is a mysterious kind of
A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 40

organism,” Kyrmov reflects (qtd. in Thomas “My Manner of Telling the Story” 86).

Designer-performers were never acting in the strict definition of the word, “their truth is

in the act of creation. [...] The result is not acting, but a display of our creations” (qtd. in

Thomas “My Manner of Telling the Story” 86). In that sense, Krymov recognizes that

designers need a visual justification, whereas actors find inner justifications on their own.

The work with designers was a pure collaborative experience, where all of them were co-

authors, while the work with actors is not. Yet in the process of working with actors,

Krymov found something exciting:

“For me, it is like working with smoke. It is like an adrenalin rush for me to shape

this smoke and see the result. If you create something with designers, for

example, if you understand that this movement has to be only two minutes, then it

is only a matter of discipline⎯two minutes, no more, no less. If you work with

actors, however, each day could be different” (qtd. in Thomas “My Manner of

Telling the Story” 87).

Krymov found in this “shaping of smoke” a vehicle for his own ideas. Actors could

express them in a way he could not do as a teacher and co-creator. Before, he wanted the

shows to come from his students’ feelings and thoughts but with actors he could come in

the room with his own ideas. In 2011 he confessed, “At this point in time, I am looking

forward to working more with experienced actors than with student designers” (qtd. in

Thomas “My Manner of Telling the Story” 87).

These discoveries slowly set off a new chapter in Krymov’s artistic story. He

created a new show with his new class, Katerina’s Dreams, based on the tragic heroine in

Ostrovsky’s play The Storm. A series of touching “images in motion,” the show
A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 41

premiered in 2010, and it included one actor in addition to the designer-performers

(Freedman “Dreamy Show”). The class’ second show, the “object-based opera” Aeneas

& Dido (2011) was developed as part of the Watermill Center in New York. Krymov

gave the artistic lead to his former student Vera Martynova. By that time, his interest was

already deep into his independent projects, into his work with actors. The way of working

in the lab was changing:

“When I do my independent performances, I usually have experienced actors

working with me. They understand my style and the style of our collective work,

and I can move ahead more quickly. I am concerned with my own feelings and

thoughts, my understanding of style and performance. [...] I create the main piece,

and they join me. The actors create everything [i.e. the given circumstances] more

or less for themselves, a process they enjoy. Usually they do not get involved in

anything except the acting sections of the final work.” (qtd. in Thomas “My

Manner of Telling the Story” 86).

Designers were still part of the company, but only as designers. With his third class,

which he took up on in 2011, it was clear that his professional and pedagogical paths

were becoming differentiated. Krymov did not want his teaching to become a recruiting

method for his company, but instead a platform to create director-scenographer pairs that

could communicate and collaborate creatively (Brown 179). His experimental class at

GITIS revolves about collaboration with emotion at its core: “Maybe the designer doesn't

know how to talk to actors, and the director doesn't understand movement, the history of

art, or the use of space. They complement each other; it is their job to achieve the

emotional experience that they conspire to create” (qtd. in Freedman “Dmitry Krymov”).
A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 42

The actors that joined the company were of an unusual kind. Most of them trained

by master teacher Valery Garkalin (the actor who had played Hamlet for Krymov). They

have a strong imaginative capacity and a predisposition towards “play” (Brown 176). For

Krymov, these traits are essential: “So for instance, when I say, you sit here and you sit

there, and then there is a fox that runs between you, the people I want are those who will

be interested in that right away. I will not explain, ‘why?’ ‘how’. . . So all of our actors in

some way are still kind of teenagers.” (qtd. in Brown 176). This naiveté and interest

allows the actors to navigate a design-ridden show and bring humanity and lightness to

the work. In the new company, new aesthetic dynamics were born: designers create the

impactful images that sprout in Kyrmov’s work, and the actors accent the emotional

impact of the visual.

Krymov’s first show after Demon, which incorporated actors and the designers

that had stayed in the company from his first class, was The Cow, based on a short story

by Andrei Platonov. While Krymov had expressed his distrust of words,⎯ he once said,

"I don't believe in spoken words in the theatre. Words jump out of your mouth way too

easily. But the image, the scene – that is something you have to create" (O’Mahony)⎯

The Cow started to combine visual and verbal essays about childhood and becoming a

person in Russia. It premiered only a year after Demon, this transitional period did not

pass unattended. John Freedman wrote in his review of the show that “one senses that the

subtle, though noticeable, changes in style come as much from a maturation process that

Krymov and his core group of actors and designers are experiencing together”

(Childhood Tragedy). A year later, the results of this maturing process would shock the

world.
A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 43

Opus No 7, Kyrmov’s most ambitious project at the time, premiered in 2008.

While Opus No 7 is divided in two parts, with two different stories and visuals, the show

revolves around a theme that echoes through Krymov’s oeuvre: the outcast. This idea is

approached through topics closely tied to Krymov’s identity, following the self-reflecting

use of art his father mastered. In an unprecedented large space, and featuring the design

of his students and the new actors in the company, Krymov Lab’s trajectory crystallized

in this show ⎯ Krymov’s personal story, Russia’s tragic history and the Lab’s origins

and future.

Vera Martynova and Maria Tregunova, the two students from the first class who

had stayed in the lab, were in charge of the set for this big-scale play. Each of them

designed one of the two parts in which the performance is divided. Martynova used the

length of the space for the first part “Genealogy,” seating the audience in wooden

benches facing a white wall⎯although no white wall remains white for long in a Krymov

show. During intermission, the space is reconfigured to host Tregunova’s design for the

second part “Shostakovich.” The audience is seated in a long jeu de paume configuration,

with a grandiose red velvet curtain upstage. Opus No 7 showcased the talent of Krymov

design students, the seed of his company. However, the designers did not perform this

time. The piece featured seven actors in the company, who embodied a flexible choral

ensemble similar to that of the designers in the earlier pieces, and specific characters,

such as Shostakovich.
A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 44

The first part, “Genealogy” reflects on Krymov’s own roots, his Jewish heritage.

Anti-Semitism had a significant impact in Efros’ life, which prompted him to change his

name, and his son’s last

name. In Opus No 7 the

aforementioned white wall

becomes a live canvas

when the actors throw

buckets of black ink at it.

The paint splashes, drips,

and, after some artistic Fig 17 Opus No 7 “Genealogy” Source: film.

touches and added props, becomes silhouettes: ghetto Jews. It’s another instance of

Krymov’s transformational aesthetics in which design takes on storytelling qualities.

Using a knife, the actors carve out the silhouettes. There are whispers, rustling; blinding

light comes from the cracks opened by the actors in the wall. All of a sudden, the sound

of a furnace blasts; breaking through the wall and out from the silhouettes, pieces of

paper fly out right into the audience. Giurgea compares these bits of paper to ashes (146),

charging this moment with a dismal historical load. It is a conscious confrontation;

Krymov reflects: “Many people don't like this confrontation. Many people, when they get

blasted by the wind and paper, react as if to say: ‘This is disgusting, get it off me.’ Maybe

it's better to make your points simply, but for me it's better to get a little more

uncomfortable.” (qtd. in Shea).


A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 45

With simple images,

Krymov transmits the horrors of

the Holocaust. In one of the final

moments of Opus No 7 Part 1, a

projected SS officer throws a

baby carriage full of children’s


Fig 18 Opus No 7 “Genealogy.” Thousands of paper fly on to the
shoes through the wall onto the audience. Source: http://veramartynov.com/Opus-7

stage. The actors place them by the wall, and soon little pairs of glasses begin to form the

ghostly portraits of those children, almost a photo of a dead class or a group of orphans.

With music composed by Alexandr Bakshi, “Genealogy” resonates like a requiem for

silent victims.

The second part of “Shostakovich” centers on the Russian composer Dmitry

Shostakovich. Once more, this topic ties into Krymov’s heritage. Shostakovich was one

of his father’s favorite composers, and Krymov remembers meeting the musician at the

premiere of his opera The Nose: “I remember every minute: how he bowed, how [Irina

Antonovna] led him by the

arm, the color of his shirt, of

his tie; how he hesitated, how

he seemed uncomfortable.”

(qtd. in Denisova). Opus No 7’s

second part depicts

Shostakovich’s complicated

relationship with mother Fig 19 Opus No 7 “Shostakovich” Shostakovich is stabbed with a


medal. Source: Film
A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 46

Russia, portrayed by a gigantic

puppet. She watches over and

nurses a young Shostakovich,

played by the actress Anna

Sinyankina. After discovering

music, in a piano full of paint, he

calmly sits in the lap of this giant


Fig 10 Opus No 7 “Shostakovich” Mother Russia and the puppet that
Mother Russia, and the portraits of has replaced Shostakovich. Source: Film.

other contemporary geniuses⎯ Akhmatova, Meyerhold, Mayakovsky⎯ waltz around

them while recording of a speech given by Shostakovich is played in the background.

Then suddenly, the mother shifts: She shoots at these portraits and tries to murder

Shostakovich as well. Failing to kill him, she disappears behind the red curtain, and soon

a long hand brings a medal, that is coldly pinned through Shostakovich’s chest. From

then on, Shostakovich becomes a puppet. He is placed at a grand piano, and remains

unmoved when the piano bursts into flames. In the end, an actual pitiful-looking puppet

replaces Shostakovich, his will broken, as metal pianos dance around him. Mother Russia

then comes back onstage, cuddles him, and then collapses on the floor. The complicated

story of the Russian compositor during Soviet times thus finds a poetic way into

contemporary society.

Eight years after its premiere, Opus No 7 is still one of the most demanded

Krymov shows. It has received several awards (including two Golden Masks and a

Crystal Turandot) and it put Krymov’s work at the center of international attention. The

show toured in Germany, Poland, France, Finland, Estonia, Great Britain, the United
A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 47

States, Georgia, and Brazil. Krymov’s new theatre, with its roots deep in the Russian soul

and folklore, was gaining traction and stretched its branches to break through cultural

barriers and reach to the core of audiences worldwide.


A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 48

Designer’s Theatre Reimagined

With Opus No 7 a period of success and expansion for Krymov began. Moving away

from Designer’s Theatre’s initial setting, the director focused on his independent work.

He brought forward successful performance after successful performance. The list

includes: Death of a Giraffe (2009), based on monologues created by the actors;

Tararabumblia (2010), a Chekhov parade; Katya, Sonya, Polya, Galya, Vera, Olya,

Tanya... (2011), based on Ivan Bunin’s short stories; In Paris (2011), featuring Mikhail

Baryshnikov; Oil on Canvas, Mixed Media (2011), an opera combining different art

forms such as jazz and circus; and, Gorki-10 (2012), a parody of Soviet drama. In 2012,

Krymov brought forward his third take on Shakespeare, As You Like it, from

Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which had its world premiere at the World

Shakespeare Festival in Stratford-upon-Avon and then toured internationally. And in

2013, Krymov took on Chekhov for the third time with Honore de Balzac. Notes about

Berdichev, which he described as Three Sisters turned inside out. The last of the shows

that will be analyzed in this section is the perplexing O-y Late Love (2015), where

Krymov manifests and challenges his own rules.

Fig 11 Dmitry Krymov with the puppets of As You Like It. Source: krymov.org
A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 49

What had characterized the Lab in its origins and made it genre-breaking does not

fully apply to the new productions: designers do not co-create and perform anymore.

Does this mean Designer’s Theatre was over? As Krymov’s performances keep shocking

world audiences, the label Designer’s Theatre keep showing up. “This term was invented

by the theatre historian Viktor Beryozkin,” explains Krymov “I later understood what

Beryozkin had in mind. In his point of view, it’s an author’s art. The artist is the person

thinking the images” (qtd. in Vitvitskiy). It thus becomes apparent what lays at the

foundation of the notion of Designer’s Theatre⎯the artist behind the conception: Dmitry

Krymov, straddling the roles of director and artist.

Similar to Brecht’s Epic Theatre, Artaud’s Theatre of Cruelty, Grotowsky’s Poor

Theatre, Kantor’s Theatre of Death, Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed or Wilson’s Theatre

of Images, Krymov’s Designer’s Theatre outlines a new theatre philosophy, and a new

sense of aesthetics linked to a particular artist’s vision. In 2008, Moscow-based American

critic John Freedman, wrote:

“In some small but I suspect significant way, Dmitry Krymov has created a kind

of theatre that hasn’t existed before. At least not quite like this. He applies the

same laws and employs the same devices that everyone always has, yet he

rearranges the equation, making the product of the sum the process of the

performers making it. In doing so, he achieves something that resembles only

itself” (“Designer’s Theatre” 18).

It is impossible not to be intrigued by this equation rearrangement, by how Krymov could

have found something unexpected in old laws and devices, and by the idea of the process

as the sum of all elements. For this reason, instead of a chronological description of
A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 50

Krymov’s work, this paper will now move towards an aesthetic analysis of the

outstanding elements of the abovementioned plays in an attempt to grasp Krymov’s

theatre fundamentals.

Design As Action

“Each [Krymov production] has to bring to the fore the totality of human

experience. We are all Don Quixote, all King Lear, all Shostakovich. We are not outside

the work, we are inside it, we are the work making itself right now, in front of our eyes.”

In this line, Giurgea (148) taps one of the core aesthetic values of Krymov’s work:

creation as the leading energy of the action onstage, “the work making itself right now, in

front of our eyes”. Design is not merely a setting, but actually the driving force of the

drama. This feature breaks away from the classical role of design, what Aristotle called

Spectacle (opsis), which he considered a lesser component of tragedy in service of plot

(Aristotle 29-32).

Throughout time, the balance between the constitutive elements of tragedy has

shifted. Aristotle heralded Plot over the other constituents; yet, during the crisis of Drama

described by Szondi’s Theory of Modern Drama, other features came to the forefront. For

instance, according to Szondi, character became the central locus of unity in the works of

Chekhov and Strindberg. While, since the development of Modern Drama, Aristotle’s

aesthetic elements have been challenged in numerous ways, Spectacle (in other words,

Design) has rarely been the leading dramatic force. Professor Thomas notices that if a

production leans too much on Design over any of the other elements, it is normally

considered ostentatious or poor in artistic value (“Visual Poetics” 348). Not with

Krymov, however.
A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 51

Krymov is not the first artist to bring out Spectacle over other production values.

In Russia, David Borovsky is the father of “Active Design,” a theatrical concept by which

Design was as important as the actors as a vehicle for ideas in the production. Borovsky’s

sets would change according to the stage action, dynamically redefining the space like

another performer. Although Borovsky was mainly associated with Yuri Lyubimov and

the Taganka Theatre, he collaborated with Anatoly Efros in several occasions. Borovsky

exerted an important influence on Krymov, who considers himself a disciple of his

teaching:

“He's my god. The god of my profession. Not only my profession, my existence.

[...] He had this holy form of art, this kind of art as life, something that you can't

ever really achieve, but something you always aspire to. I don't know where he

collects these ideas from.” (Shea).

Correspondingly, although Borovsky never taught design, he considered Krymov one of

his true disciples (Giurgea 47). Undeniably, Borovsky’s Active Design lives on in

Krymov’s work. Yet, Krymov escalates the importance of Design in his production in

two ways: subordinating all the other aesthetic elements to Design and fully disclosing its

process of construction and destruction.

In Krymov’s shows, which consist mostly of image sequences that have an

emotional impact through montage but not necessarily through narrative, Plot seems

unimportant. In most cases in order to create dramatic tension, the accumulation of visual

metaphors supplants the Aristotelian structure of ‘rise and fall’. Such is the case of

Demon, for instance, in which the story being told through a series of vignettes is what

the Demon witnessed during his flight. “Demon — A View from Above is not the plot of
A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 52

[the Lermontov poem] The Demon. It's imagination; it's fantasy on the subject matter.

The result is a kind of new content: the performance. The content of the performance

exists alongside the source, separately,” Krymov explains (qtd. in Shea).

Most of Krymov’s shows come from a literary source—in some cases plays—

which tend to have an emphasis on plot and narrative as a driving force. Gorki-10 is

based on texts by the Soviet playwrights Nikolai Pogodin, Viktor Rozov, (both

playwrights Anatoly Efros staged), Vsevolod Vishnevsky and Boris Vasilyev, and as

such the show could be expected to adhere to the rules of plot. Krymov shatters those

expectations. In the words of John Freedman, “By the time Act 1 concludes, all action

has degenerated to nonsense. The same scene is repeatedly re-enacted, each instance

growing increasingly bizarre” (“A Lesson, Attack on Soviet Drama in 'Gorki-10'”). The

deconstruction of plot in Gorki-10 continues throughout the play, veering into absurdity.

Design acknowledges this subordination of Plot by having one play turn into another one

as actors step in and out of a picture frame on stage.

The concept of Character is also challenged in Krymov’s work. Many of his

shows feature a chorus-like ensemble of actors who operate the design

elements⎯whether it is puppets, in As You Like It or Opus No 7, or paint and props in

Demon. Krymov himself has described that in this way performers become “not actors or

characters but ‘somebodies’ who are doing something,” that is, building blocks in his

design (Thomas “My Manner of Telling the Story” 86). In many cases, the theatrical

player that most closely adheres to the traditional idea of Character is the puppet. For

instance, in As You Like It, Pyramus and Thisbe, from Shakesperare’s A Midsummer

Night’s Dream and therefore appertaining to the traditional legacy of Character, are
A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 53

portrayed by giant

puppets the

performers assemble

and operate. Another

curious instance of

puppet-characters

appears in Opus No

7’s second part. There


Fig. 12 Pyramus and Thisbe in As Your Like It. Source: krymov.org
are two characters

that stand outside the ensemble collective: Shostakovich and Mother Russia. A giant

puppet portrays Mother Russia, and, by the end of the show, a puppet replaces

Shostakovich. The traditional role of Character is therefore displaced from the actor to

the puppet.

Some of Krymov’s most recent shows which feature more conventional characters

also frame them in a way that redefines their aesthetic quality. In Katya, Sonya, Polya,

Galya, Vera, Olya, Tanya..., a compilation of Ivan Bunin’s short stories, each of the

women featured in the title is the protagonist of a story. Although these characters are

construed in a traditional way, their presentation on stage breaks common expectations.

First of all, the women are placed opposed to an ensemble of homogeneous men who

observe them. Under this indistinct male gaze, the female characters lose their human

qualities; they become objects of worship in a literal sense. During the performance, they

are cut in half, disassembled or stuffed in boxes. Krymov acknowledges this singular

objectification of the female in his program note: “vivacious young ladies, standing
A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 54

Fig. 14 Katya, Sonya, Polya, Galya, Vera, Olya, Tanya..., Source: krymov.org

motionless like crippled puppets in cardboard boxes” (krymov.org). The final image can

be interpreted as a metaphor for this ultimate objectification of Character: a robotic baby

doll walks around the stage where the life-less remains of the women are fixed in their

spots.

Gorki-10 offers a noteworthy example of Krymov’s treatment of Character. The

show features puppets assembled and operated by an ensemble⎯this time the puppets are

soldiers that get dressed in uniforms and go to war. However, in a very innovative way,

in this show the dismantling of Character does not come from in the ensemble or in the

use of puppets, but in the

transformation of the lead

character, Lenin, from a mystery

into a cartoon. The character of

Lenin is unsettled through

constant actor changes. At one

point, even Lenin's wife

transforms into Lenin. Character Fig. 13 Lenin in Act 1 of Gorki-10. Source: os.colta.ru
A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 55

progressively gets blurred, and at the end of the act, the actress Maria Smolnikova takes

over what is left of that Lenin character to deal him one final blow. Freedman describes

this last scene,“[Smolnikova]’s high-pitched voice, her scattershot diction and her

flailing, herky-jerky gestures surely are enough to finally put Lenin to rest.” If this

“cartoonization” of character was not obvious then, the play makes a strong point at the

end of the second act when famous full-person scale cartoons, Mickey Mouse and Bart

Simpson included, show up and are shot to death with a toy cannon. The traditional idea

of Character is dead. Krymov transforms actors into puppets and Character into Design.

In a personal interview, Krymov described what makes puppets so special for his

storytelling:

“When you have a puppet onstage, the actor becomes the storyteller, which is

something that I really like. The actor doesn’t have to act. The actor acts through

the puppet. So it’s like billiards: you’re not just shooting straight. You are

ricocheting from the board to get into the hole. [...] So you’re splitting the

personality for the actor. On one hand, you’re taking away the responsibility

because it’s not “you” anymore. On the other hand, you have a lot of

opportunities to create a more vivid portrayal and address a very specific culture.”

Krymov’s special treatment of Character serves a specific function: creating a subtle

poetic manner that will allow him to address larger issues in a universal way. More will

be said of what Krymov calls ‘poetic manner’ in following sections.

The next Aristotelian element, Music, plays a prominent role in Krymov’s shows.

As discussed around the theme of Character, Krymov employs an ensemble in many of


A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 56

his shows. His particular use of ensemble is reminiscent of the Chorus in Greek tragedy:

a homogenous collective that can help the audience relate to the action onstage. In many

instances of Kyrmov’s work, this chorus-like ensemble expresses itself through music as

it was done in Classical times. For instance, in Opus No 7’s Genealogy, the ensemble

sings to the music of Aleksandr Bakshi in an eerie but moving way. Krymov, probably

influenced by his father’s passion for Jazz and Shostakovich, selects music in a beautiful,

expressive way. Yet, although Krymov is very aware of musicality and rhythm, music

does not lie at the core of his creative process. In fact, it is one of the last things to be

added (personal interview), and therefore subservient to the rest of the creation.

Regarding Thought and Diction, Krymov’s approach to words onstage is

characterized by distrust of the spoken, and the servitude of the text to the visual.

Krymov, a man of few words himself, has expressed this suspicion of words on stage on

numerous occasions. There is an explanation, “why aren't words enough? Why must

things be expressed in other ways, too? Because they need to be fixed in a given form. It's

one thing to talk about a bouillon cube, but it's another thing to hold in your hands a

bouillon cube from which you can break off a chunk and actually make a pot of soup.”

(qtd. in Freedman “Dmitry Krymov).

The creation of Designer’s Theatre is actually founded in Krymov and his

student’s discovery that a story could be transmitted without words: “When [the students]

began not to use words in their études, I immediately recognized the borderline between

something new and genuine and something worn-out and false. It was clear that it was

possible to say something about love, friendship, men, women – without words” (qtd. in
A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 57

Thomas “My Manner of Telling the Story” 85). For this reason, Krymov’s first shows

were mainly wordless, despite their literary origins.

Most Krymov shows come from literature, but even when dealing with classical

authors such as Shakespeare or Chekhov, Krymov veered away from the words on the

page. His images do not illustrate the source material, but take it as inspiration to tell a

story with a new vocabulary based on Design. Krymov explains, "we had not been

trained how to speak or move on stage. But we came up with theatrical magic tricks. It

turned out that it was possible to tell a story without a text using these tricks"

(O’Mahoney). Such is the case of Demon, inspired by Lermotov’s poem but diving into

the exploration of other people’s lives, or Donkey Hot, which is definitely not a literal

adaptation of the Cervantes novel.

As the Lab evolves, more and more text has been added on the stage supported by

a strong image. Death of a Giraffe marks a shifting point towards the use of words.

Krymov expresses it so in the program note:

“We are changing all the time. And if at the beginning, we were the “theatre of

artists,” then now we are already no longer just drawing – a pretty picture won’t

cut it anymore. And moreover, you can’t trust visual art alone in the theatre,

where words are also important; not to mention music, and movement, and, most

of all, actors – it’s their personalities which create the atmosphere of the show,

and you can’t change that out for anything, not for any “novelty” whatsoever.”

(krymov.org).
A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 58

Krymov defies his own established rules. This note seems to turn his previous arguments

around by implying a distrust of the visual and a rapprochement towards actors (and

seemingly ‘making peace’ with the other Aristotelian elements). For the first time, a

Krymov show was not inspired by a literary source, but created by the actors. The

performance begins with what had come to be characteristically Krymov-esque: fifteen

wordless, physically-charged and design-driven minutes. Then, the show continues to

present a series of monologues of different characters (maybe one of the few instances of

close-to-traditional Character) around the death of a giraffe. This format differed from

Krymov’s previous treatment of text, yet it still challenges the classical ideas of Speech.

According to Szondi, Drama is based on dialogue. Death of a Giraffe proudly refuses

conversation by presenting isolated monologues that could be taken from verbatim

theatre if they were not pure works of fiction out of the actors’ minds.

Slowly spoken words have started playing a larger role in Krymov’s work.

“Words can only give you the starting point of the subject you’re interested in. It doesn’t

mean you shouldn’t use words. You can use them differently. You shouldn’t be the slave

of the words. That’s the most important thing,” Krymov acknowledged recently (personal

interview). Although he argues that words spoken onstage are “an illusion of

communication,” he admits that they are also a powerful source of imagery (Sellar 20).

This growing relationship with words blossomed with one of Krymov’s most recent

shows: O-y Late Love, which will be examined further on.

The concept of Designer’s Theatre is therefore based on a subordination of all

dramatic elements to Design. As Maria Tregunova, Krymov’s former student and

designer for the Lab, explained in an interview, "We used design as an important tool.
A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 59

[...] It was treated as a transmitter of meaning in its own right. It set the rules and often

even played an independent dramatic role" (qtd. in O’Mahoney). This is the first way in

which Designer’s Theatre constructs a whole genre on top of Borovsky’s idea of Active

Design. But Krymov goes a step beyond in his use of Design as a dramatic tool by

displaying the role of creation and destruction in his shows as the main source of action.

Other artists, such as Robert Wilson or Tadeusz Kantor have created a theatre

based on design or images. It is also interesting to notice that both Wilson and Kantor,

like Krymov, delved into visual arts and design as well as the theatre. However,

Krymov’s theatre is different from these

previous aesthetics in that, as Professor

Thomas notices, “Krymov’s theatre does not

present a sequence of images ready-made, but

actually creates (and destroys) those images

before our eyes.” (“The Visual Poetics” 349).

The design process provides therefore the arc

that sustains the dramatic structure of the

performance.

Many of Krymov’s shows begin with

an empty or minimalistic stage that by the end

is full of rubble, reminders of the action that

has taken place. Figure 25 shows the

beginning and end state of the stage in Death Fig. 15 Stage at the beginning and end of Death of a
Giraffe. Source: personal archive
A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 60

of a Giraffe. The process of creation and destruction is the energy that feeds the

production and the destruction visible at the end is nothing but a witness of what

happened during the performance. The portrayal of the creative process constitutes the

fuel for Krymov’s performances and the core of Designer’s Theatre. Freedman explained

this pillar in his article “Dmitry Krymov Designer’s Theatre,” describing Demon:

“Each moment of The Demon: The View from Above is an instant of becoming.

Characters, costumes, environments, and situations are created ex nihilo and

disappear just as quickly. Everything about them is transitory and perisahble,

although [...] the mark they leave seems tantalizingly close to being permanent.

This production is not merely a performance of something conceived, created and

fixed in a finalized form, rather it is conceived to bloom and to perish before our

eyes” (18).

Although Freedman is only referring to one show, Demon’s eloquent transformation of

images pristinely exemplifies how Krymov puts creation and destruction onstage.

One of the most compelling examples of how Krymov stages the creation and

destruction process can be found in Death of a Giraffe. As mentioned before, the first

part of the show differs from the rest of the performance. During the first fifteen minutes,

a wordless tea party takes place. The actors build a very wobbly table with four legs and

then use very delicate china to serve tea. Little by little, they start adding colorful blocks

to the skinny legs of the highly unstable table. The actors focus on their task; they check

with each other before lifting the table to make room for the new block. The tension is

shocking, because the act of creation is real: in any moment, the table could collapse and

shatter the china. There are no guarantees of success, and the act becomes so tension-
A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 61

riden that it seems like

the circus. Then,

following Krymov’s

principles of

transformation, the tea

table becomes a giraffe,

and the tea party, an

actual circus
Fig. 16 Tea party at the beginning of Death of a Giraffe. Source: krymov.org
performance. Actors

perform silly circus tricks around the giraffe, relaxing the atmosphere in the room after

that tense moment of the creation of the giraffe. And then, one of these tricks involving a

trampoline becomes obviously yet somehow unexpectedly deadly. When the performer

lands from the jump, the fragile giraffe-table with china loudly collapses.

The display of the process of creation is so inherently dramatic and engaging for

the audience that it consequently becomes a participant in the drama, as Giurgea heralded

Fig 17 Stage in As You Like It. Source: personal archive.


A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 62

in the quote that opened this section. Krymov’s theatre uses creation as the thread that

connects each aesthetic element, and then shifts the storytelling to reveal the process of

creation and destruction itself. One must follow the other. Creation and Destruction⎯this

idea might be connected with a special Russian sensibility, but it seems that one cannot

exist without the other. And the silent witnesses of both forces lie on the stage at the end

of the show to remind us.

Poetic Montage

A theatre credo linked to design elements is not unheard of⎯although, as was just

described, no one has quite done what Krymov is doing. In the United States, for

instance, the legendary company Bread and Puppet became famous for their

performances involving puppets. Their “cheap art,” made from unfinished materials,

involutes a feeling of being “in the process” of creation, somewhat akin to Krymov’s

aesthetics although not reaching the same scope—their puppets never get built in front of

the audience’s eyes and Design does not drive the dramatic event. Furthermore, Bread

and Puppet Theatre’s performances are highly political and openly so. Krymov, on the

other hand, is not understood as an overtly political director (Thomas “My Manner of

Telling the Story” 83). That does not mean he is out of touch with reality. As he said to

John Freedman in a interview, “You can't live in the age of the iPhone 6 and go bonkers

over mid–twentieth century theater. It's the same with your head: you must go into it

some other way. By way of emotion. By way of emotion embodied in an image”

(“Dmitry Krymov”). It can be argued that Krymov’s work offers a commentary on

current situations, but what really characterizes his aesthetics is the search for an

emotional response instead of an intellectual one.


A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 63

“‘You have to watch and feel,’ he says. ‘You shouldn't overthink,’” Krymov

explains (qtd. in O’Mahoney). To service that purpose—a theatre that appeals to

emotions before it reaches conscious reasoning⎯Krymov frames his theatre as poetry.

“The most important thing is to find a poetic manner,” Krymov once told his performers

(qtd. in Freedman “Designer’s Theatre” 17). The connections between ideas in Krymov

plays are indirect, emotion-based. Similarly to metaphors in a poem, he uses montages of

images to reach an emotional impact by the implicit associations that arise between them.

It is visual, theatrical poetry.

As an artist, and maybe because of his pictorial past, Krymov turns to images in

order to inspire emotion in his audiences. “The eyes are the quickest route to the soul,”

Krymov states. The way those images give way to emotion is through montage. Professor

Thomas has labeled Krymov’s technique ‘dynamic montage’: “Montages because they

combine visual and aural elements from various sources; dynamic because the designers

construct and deconstruct them literally before our eyes (“The Visual Poetics” 140).

Krymov recognizes that montage is his manner of telling the story: “I want the story to

progress by montage connections rather than by the subject itself. Meyerhold once said

that a performance is a montage of attractions.” (qtd. in Thomas “My Manner of Telling

the Story” 88).

In the previous quote, Meyerhold, the Russian avant-garde director and rebel

pupil of Stanislavsky emerges as one of Krymov’s influences. The term ‘montage of

attractions,’ was coined by Meyerhold’s pupil, the Russian film director and theorist

Eisenstein to describe Meyerhold’s technique. Meyerhold and Eisenstein were part of a

period when Russia was undergoing a powerful industrialization. The fascination with the
A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 64

machine permeates their artistic ideas, both as subject (Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin),

acting approach (Meyerhold’s biomechanics) and treatment of space (Meyerhold’s The

Magnanimous Cuckold). Furthermore, as fields crossbred, cinema began to affect theatre

aesthetics in a “cinefication” of theatre language through the use of lights and staging

championed by Meyerhold (Salter). The fascination with machine and cinema is now

long over, but Krymov incarnates the ideas of montage of attractions in the twenty-first

century.

According to Eisenstein in his essay Montage of Attractions, an ‘attraction’ is:

“Any element of the theatre that subjects the spectator to a sensual or

psychological impact, experimentally regulated and mathematically calculated to

produce in him certain emotional shocks which, when placed in their proper

sequence within the totality of the production, become the only means that enable

the spectator to perceive the ideological side of what is being demonstrated-the

ultimate ideological conclusion.” (78).

Attraction thus becomes the base unit of theatre, an image with the potential for

emotional impact, which is to be assembled, not necessarily according to a linear

narrative, but aiming to elicit an emotional response from the spectator. Therefore, the

montage of attractions liberates theatre from being at the service of representation and

imitation to serve a thematic effect instead.

The accumulated scenes from Demon, A View From Above, serve as a beautiful

example of how montage works in Krymov’s work: an engulfing sense of humanity

captures the audience when exposed to these scenes that are not narratively connected.
A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 65

The subtle association between the two parts of Opus No 7 (Genealogy and

Shostakovich) can be taken together to affect a statement about totalitarian regimes. But

one of the most compelling examples of how montage works in Krymov’s work is in his

Chekhov celebration Tararabumbia—both a carnival and a funeral march for the 150th

anniversary of Chekhov’s birth.

Tararabumbia consists of a parade of Chekhov characters on a conveyor belt.

Ten minutes into the performance, a tumultuous military parade crosses the belt. It could

be any nameless troupe of soldiers, but right afterwards, elegant women on stilts under

their long dresses appear. Almost instinctively and with some knowledge of Chekhov’s

plays, these two elements merge and the audience member knows where these characters

come from: Three Sisters. However, not only Chekhov characters pass before the

audience’s eyes: there are also Soviet sailors and divers, Bolshoi Theatre soloists, the

USSR women synchronized swimming team and Hamlet’s characters. After an army of

fishermen, poetically conjuring Trigorin from The Seagull, a parade of breakdancing

Fig. 18 Characters inspired by Three Sisters on stilts in Tararabumbia. Source:


kyrmov.org
A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 66

performers storm in. This juxtaposition of spheres can be read as an attempt to illustrate a

contemporary equivalent of the formal breakdown The Seagull dwells on, or just a fast

time travel across 100 years. Association through montage enlarges the show’s scope

from a celebration of Chekhov to a journey through history, not reached through in a

deterministic, obvious manner, but in a poetic, evocative one.

Montage inevitably affects the audience and the relationship they have to the

performance. Eisenstein’s theory of montage of attractions used circus and film

techniques to shock the spectator (Salter 23), implying a change in the relationship with

the audience. In Krymov’s productions the performance-spectator dynamics are built

upon two elements: the aforementioned montage of attractions, and a sense of wonder

and surprise instilled in the first minutes of the show.

The sense of wonder comes from silent, almost magical scenes, such as the child

collecting marbles in a halva box that starts Tararabumbia, or from fourth-wall-breaking

beginnings such as that of As You Like It, when the mechanicals blast through the

audience with a giant log, a dog

and a splashing fountain. The

fragmentary nature of montage

could become alienating for an

audience accustomed to plot-driven

plays, but these initial moments

serve to signal to the spectators

that they are entering a world with Fig. 19 Beginning of As Your Like It. Source: Krymov.org

a different set of rules.


A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 67

According to Brown, the actors’ naiveté maintains this world of strong

associations balancing successfully between authenticity and absurdity (177). Their

truthful performance hints at a cohesive set of rules, and the audience is prepared to make

sense of the unexpected. Montage defies predictability—anything could happen next.

Through a montage-based theatre, Krymov changes the rules of the conversation with the

audiences, awaking and immersing the spectator in a deeply poetic and emotional

experience.

Russian Soul for a Universal Language

“Is this improvisation?” “It’s modern art” “As You Like It further blurs the line

between audience and performance is by having performers act as audience members.

Seated by the sides of the stage and facing the audience, they satirize generic audience

behavior. In an ongoing commentary they try to categorize the performance. This is

avant-garde!” Categorization is challenging. Can Krymov be considered postmodernist?

Under the Soviet regime, the Russian avant-garde followed a different path than the

European and American counterparts. Dramaturg Duska Radosavljevic in her book

Theatre-Making: Interplay Between Text and Performance in the 21st Century rejects the

idea of Krymov’s theatre as a manifestation of postmodernism because of his shows’

connection and representativeness of their own cultural heritage (55). Krymov aesthetics

are deeply connected to his Russian roots both in form and in content.

Most of Krymov’s performances arise from Russian culture either directly from

Russian source materials or from indirect thematic references. Demon: A View from

Above and The Cow stand out in this sense as shows which offer an example of both

direct and thematic connection to Russian identity. Demon arises from a Russian literary
A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 68

source (Lermontov’s poem) and additionally delves into Russian identity. The

performance features passages of Russian literary history, such as Tolstoy’s death or

Gogol’s burning of his manuscript. It also depicts the experience of growing up in Russia

through the story of Tamara, accompanied by traditional dances and folklore.

The Cow similarly explores the question of Russian childhood, using Andrei

Platonov’s short story as source material. The story is quite dark: Vasya, a young man,

reminisces about a turning event in his childhood, the loss of his innocence: he lost his

beloved cow as his father sold it to be butchered; the animal escaped and was killed by a

train. The train that appears onstage carries the baggage any Russian would recognize

(Freedman “Childhood Tragedy”): images of Lenin’s mausoleum, a bust of Pushkin, and

a portrait of Konstantin Stanislavsky, among others. All these images become building

blocks of Russian historic identity that pass before the audience’s eyes and end up killing

the innocent cow.

Krymov does not shy away from the complicated relationship Russians have with

their country. Instead, he puts it onstage, like the figure of Mother Russia in Opus No 7: a

giant puppet that is both nurturing and deadly. Inevitably, the cultural fabric surrounding

Krymov and his Lab exerts a powerful influence on their work. Krymov bares the truth

he sees. Freedman recalls a specific moment in one of Krymov’s classes when he told his

set design students, “"You are Russians, you grew up in Russia, you will work in the

Russian theater. As such, there is one thing you must never forget — there is no such

thing as an idyll in Russia. If there is a bear in the concept of your design, then there is

blood and mayhem, too. This idyllic model is a lie. You cannot lie in the theater"

(“Director Dmitry Krymov”). This heartbreaking vision is behind one of Krymov’s last
A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 69

shows, Russian Blues. In Search of Mushrooms (2015)2. Mushroom hunting is one of the

purest Russian traditions, one to which any Russian can relate and which is inherently

positive in nature: the communal search of happiness. But ultimately, this prospect of

happiness burns away like the house that is set on fire by the character “shit” at the end of

the show; the search was futile.

Russian Blues might be one of the most Russian and contemporarily relevant

shows Krymov has created. Formally, Krymov is again pushing boundaries: the show

features an unreliable narrator who describes and comments on the scenes through

headphones each member of the audience gets. Content-wise, each scene resonates with a

recent event. “If you see bleakness in Russian Blues, then, naturally, that is what is there.

But there is not one word in it, not one direct gesture or image, that would say anything

about the downed Malaysian airliner or the downed Russian fighter jet, or about

terrorism. There isn't the vaguest hint of that. I present other themes in such a way that

makes you sense what you describe [bleakness],” Krymov explains (qtd. in Freedman

“Dmitry Krymov”). You first see men enter a submarine with a short description of who

they are. Later in the show you hear that description again, when scuba divers release

white silhouettes from the bottom of the ocean. These subtle hints give a powerful

expression to the complexity of current events.

The sometimes-bleak Russian outlook might seem to clash with the playfulness

and lightness that characterized Krymov’s work. Lead actress Maria Smolnikova

elucidates this apparent contradiction, “Joy is [Krymov’s] landmark. If there is no joy,

2
Krymov Lab’s last three productions to date are Russian Blues. In Search of
Mushrooms, In Their Own Words. A. Pushkin “Eugene Onegin” and Last Date in Venice.
A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 70

there is no point to the show. In his shows there is no darkness, although there are hints at

the terrors in life. Why would you stage hell? Having seen his shows, people won’t say

‘Oh, how badly we live. Well, let’s change things tomorrow.’ Only with lightness and

kindness we can change this world” (qtd. in Vitvitskiy). In order to do so, poetry is the

key. In Krymov’s own words “You will take the image and find how it talks about you.

I’m interested in a way of expression that will teach you a way to remember” (“A

Conversation with Krymov”). Krymov presents all Russian moments with no overt

judgment in them, but with a distance to the image that allows for the audience to have

their own emotional reactions.

Kymov’s poetry on stage, his poetic manner, holds the key to his international

success. In an interview about In Paris, an adaptation of Ivan Bunin’s short story of the

same name featuring Mikhail Baryshnikov, Krymov stated, “Theater is an international

language, even if you do not understand everything to the third and fourth degree, theater

is interesting in itself. It’s a little like poetry” (qtd. in Grynszpan). Krymov’s cultural

specificity and poetic manner paradoxically unlock human universal qualities for

audiences anywhere in the world.

To conclude this section on the aesthetic elements of Krymov’s Designer’s

Theatre, it is important to look at O-y. Late Love (2014) which won the 2016 Golden

Mask award for best small-scale production and best actress (Maria Smolnikova). It is a

startling play for many reasons, as it both perfects and defies Krymov’s aesthetic

trajectory to date.
A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 71

O-y. Late Love’s most salient feature is that for the first time Krymov staged a

play: Alexander Ostrovsky’s Late Love written in 1873. Krymov had never been

interested in staging plays: “some people can stage plays that were written by someone

else, but our work is not like that. I am interested in our way, but that does not exclude

other possibilities.” (qtd. in Thomas “My Manner of Telling the Story” 88). In light of

these statements, the production came as a surprise due to its fidelity to the source

material. Krymov was attracted to the idea of bringing a classic to a contemporary

understanding “with no rotten feeling” (qtd. in Vitvitskiy).

In Krymov’s aesthetics the old text becomes unrecognizable. Evgeniy Startsev,

one of the actors on the show, describes the approach: “Dmitry Anatolyevich analyzed

each and every scene, telling something of his biography, sharing his experience. And we

discovered that after 100 years in

Russia nothing has changed. For our

country and its inhabitants everything

is over the top. We go from extreme to

extreme, and all our life is reduced to

the extreme. That’s what we’re

playing.” (qtd. in Vitvitskiy).

Interestingly for this show, Krymov


Fig 20 O-y. Late Love. Source: www.novayagazeta.ru

went back to using students (except for Maria Smolnikova, who plays the Lyudmila),

only this time they are acting students from GITIS. The Lab’s past and future seems to

amalgamate in this production.


A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 72

Many of Krymov’s established aesthetic elements appear in O-y. Late Love. It is a

play arising from a Russian source and of Russian themes. Although in this case, the

source material is kept for the most part intact, with a radical interpretation of the end.

Despite Krymov’s new approach to text, the visual is still the starting point. Referring to

the show, Krymov points out “for us, the classic text is just the basis for a meaningful

visual image” (qtd. in Vitvitskiy). Words are therefore subservient to the image in O-y.

Late Love, as in Krymov’s previous work.

The fragmentary feeling, characteristic of Krymov’s montage, permeates the

structure of the play. According to Russian critics, “Ostrovsky’s text sounds as if

crumbled into individual letters and assembled again” (qtd. in krymov.org). In fact, there

are moments during the production when the text is mumbled and a transcription is

shown in a projection. Character is also turned upside down: female characters are played

by men and male characters by women. There is no puppetry, but in the absence of

puppets, Krymov explains, he turned the actors into live puppets (personal interview).

Their makeup is exaggerated; their costumes take over their form—a grotesque caricature

that eventually gives way to a reconsideration of humanity and beauty.

A known classic thus turned unpredictable under Krymov’s direction. But it is

unpredictable even for audiences accustomed to the director. New elements are

introduced in this play: electrifying special effects and energized fight choreography, hip-

hop dance breaks, sports and even a torture scene. The well-known characters are shown

with their ruthlessness and faults. And the happy end of the source material takes an

unexpected turn: in the wedding between Nikolai and Lyudmila, the groom, after looking

with melancholy at his elated bride, shoots himself in the chest while she is left feebly
A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 73

singing with a broken voice. Krymov may be parodying common tropes in Russian

literature: self-sacrifice, immaterialness, and unprompted warmth. But in face of all the

ugliness, the distortion and the irony, the endless love and undying faithfulness these

heroes embody is still noticeable.

In the same way Opus No 7 marked the beginning of a new phase for Krymov’s

Lab, O-y. Late Love seems to point towards a new development of Krymov’s aesthetics,

with new ideas of text and character, and new players for the Lab’s games. Designer’s

Theatre seems not to be a fixed aesthetic idea, as it continues to grow with each show that

Krymov Laboratory produces.

Fig 21 Curtain call for O-y. Late Love. with Dmitry Krymov. Source: brunch.lv
A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 74

Behind Designer’s Theatre: The Process

Fig. 22 Sir Vantes: Donkey Hot. Source: Ivan Murzin. krymov.org

Krymov’s unique integration of Design as a source of storytelling opens many

questions about the development process of each piece. In Donkey Hot, a whole scene is

based on the existence of a dress that takes over the full room, separating the actress who

dances flamenco from the mechanical rats that run underneath her skirt. How could this

moment be born in rehearsal? In the contemporary Western tradition, designers work

parallel to rehearsals, and stage action and design are integrated normally at the end of

the process during ‘tech.’ But when witnessing Krymov’s theatre, the perennial question

“what comes first - the chicken or the egg?” can be rephrased as “what comes - first the

design or the scene?”

Dr. Bryan Brown’s essay In Search of the Idea constitutes a first attempt to

answer this question, elucidating the main principles that govern Krymov’s creative

process. Acknowledging the evolving nature of the Lab and the variability of each
A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 75

project, Brown identifies four core elements: idea, interest, play, and genealogy

mechanism (174). The rehearsal process is divided in two parts: first, the ‘table work’ and

then the ‘staging,’ but everything begins with the idea (Vitvitskiy).

Krymov’s concept of idea descends from his father’s lore. “It's what my father

called the ‘massiveness behind the intention.’ It's a thing, a concept that grasps the entire

play with it and won't let it crumble.” (qtd. in Shea). According to Krymov, every aspect

of the production has to connect to this intention or concept, which is ultimately a

personal question to the source material. In Krymov’s own words “what is the question

you’re trying to ask Hamlet?” (qtd. in Shea). He says sometimes the idea comes from the

form, from “the desire to mix the paint,” or sometimes it is the other way around (“A

Conversation With Krymov”). Before he approaches his company, though, he prepares

that idea: “I need to know the main points. This is like building a bridge—it’s a serious

task. It has to be beautiful, sturdy and meaningful. And it has to connect two things, not

be in the middle of nowhere; it has to be ideologically attached” (“A Conversation With

Krymov”). Once he has that protoidea, a direction towards the adventure towards which

he wants to lead the ship, he approaches his actors. Together they further develop the idea

since “beauty and meaning will be better if we work together” (“A Conversation With

Krymov”). The idea is what sparks and anchors the interest, and using both they create

and evoke the world of the artist (Brown 170).

For interest and idea to really work as a spool and thread of the creative process,

as Brown suggests, a very special fertile atmosphere is required. As explained before,

Krymov searches for a very particular kind of actor: “I couldn’t work with every actor.

They have to be the people who are really interested [in what is proposed to them]. And
A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 76

not [interested purely] out of professional duty.” In interviews, Krymov has talked about

readiness and openness, a total faith with doubt (Shea). But beyond these traits, Krymov

prizes the actors’ individuality as artists. Smolnikova comments, “[Krymov] does not

permit lack of independence in artists. He comes up with something new and always

expects a reaction” (qtd. in Vitvitskiy). And in turn, she as an artist anticipates that

individuality and is not afraid of going counter to Krymov, “you can’t just be obedient

and do as he wants. I would die. I’m not interested in that and Dmitry Anatolyevich isn’t

interested in that. I translate his desires into my art. You bring ideas so that you’re alive

and he can see that you’re alive” (“Conversation With Krymov”).

In the words of the actors, an acute sense of mutual trust shines through. For

Krymov, in order to create a performance the company needs to “live together” for at

least a year (Shea). The atmosphere that allows Krymov’s Lab to create is one of family.

“If you’re going to work for a long time with the same people: how do you create

a family? By living together. You know, you’re newlyweds but that doesn’t mean

you’re family, right? It takes a while to create a family. Family is when you go

through all the difficult times and the good times. Then you become a family.”

(personal interview).

The idea of a family brings out Krymov’s childhood memories of his father’s

company. Now, thinking of how “those young happy people started to push [Efros] out,

the betrayal,” Krymov is perplexed “I don’t know how he bore it. I still don’t. I hope I

never do. It’s scary to think about that” (“ A Conversation With Krymov”). Trust is at the

core of the creative process for Krymov: it allows for exploration and play. But it is also
A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 77

the core of the performance. As Krymov articulates, “The main thing is our interaction.

The performance comes from our interaction.” (qtd. in Shea)

From this atmosphere of trust, the shared sense of interest is born (Brown 174).

According to Punina, idea and interest spark this subjective ache in the company, and

thus they begin the exploratory first stage (Brown 173). It is during this time that the first

associations begin to develop, either in the form of probing questions by Krymov or in

etudes (Thomas “My Manner of Telling the Story” 87). But nothing is formally

structured: “we do lots of things, but I do not remember the name of these things” (qtd. in

Thomas “My Manner of Telling the Story” 87). During this investigative time, the words

‘child’ and ‘play’ are often heard in the room. Kyrmov’s rehearsal process brings out the

child in his actors. And Krymov is one more child. Evgeniy Startsev describes the

relationship of the celebrated director to the process, “Like a big child, every time

[Krymov] discovers something, he runs to share it with us. No matter his stature, he is

invested in each of us. We do not have the infamous actor-director distance.” (qtd. in

Vitvitskiy).

The first stage of the design process is a generative stage in which actors and

designers work side by side. Brown calls the technique ‘genealogy mechanism:’ each

member of the ensemble brings their own images and “then await[s] the results of [the]

interplay between their various pictures and their dreams” (174). Design is introduced in

this early stage of creation, as it is the foundation for Krymov’ theatrical events. "We

start with some small idea, prop, or action. And in front of your eyes, it gets transformed

into something else entirely," Krymov explained (qtd. in O’Mahoney). During the

exploratory phase, Krymov Laboratory finds the poetic manner of the show. They test
A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 78

visual metaphors by developing intuitive, emotion-based relationships with objects, in a

way that imbues them with meaning. “Each object has a conversation. There is an

exercise I like (that I came up with). I give them an object—anything: a phone, broken

cup—that I think has a conversation or maybe not. They have to take the object and then

choose two others that will make me think about life. A soldier button, with a thread and

a photo tells me something about that person” (“A Conversation With Krymov”). In

exercises like this, the company goes through hundred of iterations in which personal

associations are constructed on to cultural artifacts.

Then each composition is assessed for its emotional impact in a group discussion

led by Kyrmov (Brown 173). Krymov asks the actors what they thought about each étude

and then describes what he saw. Together, they try to find a way to express how they feel

about the idea visually, symbolically and psychologically (Thomas “My Manner Of

Telling the Story” 87). This process is inspired by Meyerhold’s ideas of the director’s

role as a keeper of harmony and balance in a collective creation in service to an idea

(Brown 173). Throughout this process, Krymov bears in mind the idea and the structure,

but keeps it flexible. “Everything else can change as you go along. I have some points

marked out for myself, but much is totally dependent on the actors; there are many, many

parts of every performance that I didn't come up with. My greatest joy comes from

watching the show and not remembering what's mine and what's theirs,” he explains (qtd.

in Shea).

Krymov sees this first part of rehearsal as a free-growing stage: “It's like a tree. A

tree can't make a mistake just growing; the leaves come out whichever way they want.

Only once it's grown can you think about how to prune it and the form can emerge from
A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 79

there.” However, as they approach the second part of the process, Krymov settles on a

structure and a trajectory. He starts shaping the tree according to that initial idea. In some

cases, such as the second workshop at Yale University for the development of his new

piece The Square Root of Three Sisters, he works off a preliminary script that integrates

material developed in the first stage of rehearsals. What Krymov looks for in this

instances is both the establishment of the given circumstances for the actors and a

distillation of the material so that they are “absolutely sure about what is happening and

why” (“A Conversation With Krymov”). In the words of David Chambers, a friend and

collaborator of Krymov Laboratory, Krymov takes on the roles of shaman and surgeon.

As a shaman he empowers the vision. As a surgeon he carves the theatrical event with

precision3.

Precision for Krymov does not mean meticulous calculated coldness. On the

contrary, Krymov plunges himself in the process of staging the play. The line between

performance and the real world is non-existent. Krymov exists in the action, acting

alongside the actors. As the scenes progress, he throws images and ideas at them. “These

two people are two kamikazes—they know they are going to die,”4 he says to the actors

playing Masha and Vershinin. To the actress playing Arkadina he offers, “You are going

to burn everything like Napoleon. You’re not going to allow it.” As the actors follow his

lead, he keeps coming with more ideas that build upon what they are doing. “You can’t

throw cigarettes at the corpse. It wouldn’t be polite.” He gives the actors more than they

3
David Chambers, in discussion with the author, January 2016.
4
All these quotes and information comes from attending the Krymov’s second
workshop at Yale School of Drama in January 2016.
A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 80

can rationally comprehend. “It’s nuts. It’s terrifying,” director alumna Sara Holdren

laughs at the end of a rehearsal.

However, Krymov is not interested in his instructions being followed. He

considers the good performers those who actually do not copy what he is saying (personal

interview). It is not an act of deceit, but an acknowledgment of the actors’ artistry. During

rehearsals at Yale he softly told one of the performers, “Right now you didn’t do it right.

I’ll tell you why: you remembered what you had to do and did it. You didn’t add anything

of your personality. It was predictable.” Krymov’s instructions are a teasing, a

motivation: he offers the energy, the intention, the rhythm and the direction in the service

of his vision. Working with Yagil Eliraz, third year directing MFA candidate at the Yale

School of Drama, who played during the workshop a character blend of Kulygin from

Three Sisters and Trigorin from The Seagull, their joint forces transformed the

character’s obsession with writing into a scary feature. The script had a reference to

writing because of being a citizen of the motherland, but in the improvisatory frenzy of

rehearsal, Trigorin became a spy agent who was also recording what the audience was

doing. The need to write gained another more dangerous undertone, all coming from

combined creative forces. Krymov wants the actors to live the scene and surprise

themselves and him.

Krymov explains, “It has to be truthful and spontaneous: that’s the secret. It’s

very hard to do in theatre because we are five steps ahead. Ninety percent of actors listen

to their director and then I know what is going to happen – and I am not going to laugh.”

By overloading the actors he ensures that spontaneity will arise from their performances,

“details that you don’t even know where they come from.” Krymov compares this
A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 81

process to Jackson Pollock’s painting, “if he thought about every line, it wouldn’t have

the expression it has.” And because spontaneity lives in the rehearsal room, inevitably the

performance keeps growing. Surprise is at the core Kyrmov’s the creative process, “in

my shows there’s a point where you wonder ‘how is this going to happen’ but then it

happens and then you wonder ‘where did we find the strength to make it happen?’ The

important thing is not to lose the meaning—that is what matters” (“A Conversation With

Krymov”).

The performances are alive, playing by the rules of the game that the ensemble

and Krymov have created but without being adamant about what those rules are. They are

highly emotional and rooted in poetry: “If you touch the cup that’s it—you have to leave

your husband,” Krymov clarifies to actress Annelise Lawson, who plays Masha, in a

scene where Vershinin makes a magic trick that makes a cup cross the table towards her,

a metaphor for their nascent affair. That rule will motivate the acting. As Krymov offers:

“I’m asking please do not move the cup because I love you but I can’t touch it.” It is a

complex game.

According to David Chambers, actors have to be playing in three levels: the

psychological level of the character, the present situation of the game on stage and the

game with the audience. In one of Krymov’s most recent productions, the children show

In Their Own Words. A. Pushkin “Eugene Onegin”, the four actors simultaneously play

in four levels: they play themselves, the quirky narrators, lead characters in their telling

of Eugene Onegin and other minor character. Similarly, in The Square Root of Three

Sisters, actors played themselves and their roles, but swapped roles in many occasions.
A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 82

Every level is always present, but some become heightened in certain moments of the

performance.

With the help of Maria Smolnikova, Krymov employs an exercise for the actors to

live in the character. This exercise is very interesting in nature since it seems to

unknowingly associate with the pedagogy of Method Acting in America, and

consequently implies a turning point in Krymov’s approach to acting and Character. It

consists of an interview in character, where other actors, Krymov and Smolnikova ask

questions (sometimes with no easy answer) to an actor in character. What Krymov looks

for is truthfulness and specificity in the actors’ responses; not only living in the giving

circumstances but finding a way to make them interesting for the audience⎯ a delicate

equilibrium hard to achieve.

As much as it is demanding, it is exhilarating for the performers and for Krymov.

His collaborator Andrew Freeburg describes what he brings to rehearsal in a very

eloquent way, “other directors have their hand tools, chisels... Krymov brings a hammer,

a tiger saw. He hasn’t reinvented the wheel—he has invented the combustion engine.”5

At the end of a long day of rehearsing, Krymov jokingly throws himself into David

Chambers’ arms, mimicking exhaustion. It’s all a game, and two minutes later, Krymov

can be seen seated on a chair, his blue eyes gazing at infinity, thinking.

5
Andrew Freeburg, in discussion with the author, January 2016.
A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 83

Conclusion: The Constant Act of Creation

Forget what you have read; forget what you have seen; forget what you know.

Since Dmitry Krymov made his directorial debut with Hamlet in 2002, he has broken all

the rules, even the ones he established himself. Each of his plays has been a new

experiment that has challenged all expectations. He is the response to the yearnings the

masters of the past expressed in that centenary celebration of the meeting in Slavyanski

Bazar: he heralded a reform in theatre education, and fostered a new generation of

professionals who could create a theatre based on spectacle, Design, not words. But

Krymov didn’t stop there. After challenging theatre pedagogy by having designers

perform, he expanded his own boundaries by inviting actors. Now, for the first time, he is

using non-Russian actors for his new production at the Yale School of Drama. After

disallowing spoken word to give way to a theatre based on a montage of images, he

staged a play based on monologues; a play based on plays, and eventually made a classic

play explode. Even the genre he created, Designer’s Theatre, has trouble keeping up with

his blooming evolution.

It seems that, after all, the real axiom of Designer’s Theatre is not the designers on

stage, nor the idea of Design as action, but that there is no rule that cannot be broken.

When design is alive on stage, with spontaneity as the imperative, nothing is sacred.

Creation and destruction give way to one another. Krymov is aware, “there are no rules

that you cannot break. Even my own rules I like to break” (personal interview). And

maybe because of this, he prefers not to write his system down. Krymov has a restless,

questioning spirit. And each question goes into a folder that will eventually become a

show the same way his images transform before our eyes on stage.
A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 84

When approaching the writing of this project it was necessary to acknowledge the

fact that with Krymov, last year’s ideas might already be part of the past. Krymov’s

theatre embodies the constant search for pure theatricality. However, as Krymov and

Designer’s Theatre grow, this paper hopes to serve as a witness of a special moment in

time preceding more exciting changes. Where Dmitry Krymov is headed will prove to be

a fascinating gift to unwrap.


A NEW KIND OF JOY: THE THEATRE OF DMITRY KRYMOV 85

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