Leonid Anisimov, lineage, Victor Baigulov

Joseph & Mark, this one's for you.

I went to meet Leonid this morning.

I walk up to his apartment on Capitol Hill. "Hi, Rachel," says Robyn Hunt, coming around the corner. Robyn was in Suzuki's company in Japan for 13 years, is an official lineage-holder, and a legendary Suzuki teacher. Wild-lion hair, tall, lithe. Once I brought gladiolas, and she had us train with flowers instead of sticks. She has a key, I follow her in.

The door opens.

I knock on the door of Leonid's apartment; no answer. I try the knob.

The door opens.

I had walked from my car into Leonid's living-room with every door melting before me.

It was like walking into a dream.

Leonid is there. And Geo & Carol, who have housed Leonid & translated Chekhov, and once housed a Seattle Opera singer in a Don Giovanni I was assistant-directing. Jennifer Lavy from Akropolis is there, a Grotowski lineage-holder. Mark Jenkins, head of the UW acting program, in full gorgeous plain black cotton kimono. Bart Smith, the force behind the Art Theatre of Puget Sound. Paul and Yoko, from Leonid's theatre in Tokyo, where Yoko also teaches & acts in the Noh theatre. And Irina, the interpreter I met at Jennifer's potluck, who is Mark's & Jennifer's Russian tutor.

They are kneeling around a low table set for lunch. Light through the windows. White walls. Flowers everywhere. Balloons. Silence. It looks like the smiling dead, a tableau from a dream.

"Ahh," says Leonid. He comes over, hugs me, takes me by the hand, and leads me to the table. We're eating off my dishes. Another surreal touch. Hot lentil soup, made by Paul and Yoko, following the Odin's example.

Lovely meal, easy conversation. I asked Leonid his lineage. He thought, then dove into a beautiful long talk.

Lineage.

- I do not believe in lineage succession by "This person taught this person who taught me, therefore I hold this lineage." No. Only the teacher can say who is the true student. Stanislavski said he only had two true students, Vakhtangov and Sulitzki (sp?). Vakhtangov had caught the idea correctly that Stanislavski is a living system, not a static one; a system of life, of how Nature creates.

- I am related to Stanislavski through my mother's family. Alexievedna (?).

- My lineage is Stanislavski-to-me. I began with Stanislavski's principles. I studied them. I absorbed his principles deeply. From there, I came up with the system I use, my understanding.

- Meyerhold [a well-known student of Stanislavski's] became a bureaucrat in Moscow. He shut down Stanislavski's theatre. This cut Stanislavski, hurt him. Later, when Meyerhold had difficulties and lost his post, Stanislavski brought him back into his theatre. He protected Meyerhold again and again. He even sacrificed his own nephew's life, for Meyerhold. But in the end -- Meyerhold was killed.

What he has learned.

- There is not just one physical action; there are two. Passive action and active action. Active action takes place in your partner; you let your ego die, and focus on/become your partner's consciousness.

- The seed, in Nature, must die for the tree to grow. The seed is the actor's ego. The actor does not want this seed to die. But the ego must die, for the superconscious, the inspiration to grow. For the Divine self to emerge in the actor.

- Before, I would give the actor tasks without a goal. They could not get there. When a director says something in this way, it was like giving the actors a seed which they want to put in a box and protect, and never let die. This is wrong. Now, I understand. I give them the goal. The goal is to have your whole consciousness be of your partner. In this way, the actor's ego can die. Yoko, we have seen it in her. Suddenly -- wah. No ego. It is such a moment on stage. A force. No Yoko, only a focus on her partner.

- You can see this beautifully in young children. What they look at -- this flower, this candy wrapper -- Pah! Suddenly this object has their whole attention. They have no self-consciousness in this moment. Their whole world becomes only candy wrapper. You can see it quite clearly, when this moment happens. Same with actor, we can see it quite clearly.

- Theatre is the realm of paradox. Opposites MUST exist. An actor who is only ego, only focussed on himself, is a closed system which becomes toxic. He must have the focus on his partner, to have the opposites. Man AND woman. Actor AND partner.

- Actors are not willing to work. They will strive and suffer -- but they are not willing to work. "You must spend three days," I tell them, "To understand your character's Line Of Thought. After that, you can begin to work." They will not spend this three days. They will suffer 13 years more, instead of spend this three days. [laughs]

Psychology and philosophy.

- Psychology is the science of the soul. Philosophy is the understanding of the world, how the world works. A playwright makes a play, from his understanding of the soul.

- Like Chekhov -- he understands human nature. He knows the psychology, the science of the soul. He brings this to Stanislavski. Stanislavski creates the theatre -- the philosophy, the understanding of the world -- which can meet this psychology. You must have both -- soul and world. Many times I see theatres which have only one or the other. So they fail. Brecht brought both. Even a great playwright, like [Ino?] in Japan today, cannot be understood without a theatre arising whose philosophy is capable of meeting that work. There is no such theatre.

Then he laughed. "Look, I have talked for only one hour and already you are tired. I will be here nine months!" The group laughed, broke up, started clearing dishes & readying for a walk. I went to work.

The ego must die for the Divine self to emerge.

On a sadder note, Victor Baigulov, whom Leonid often referred to as a genius actor; a man so humble he was nearly translucent; whose degenerative leg disease seemed to vanish or worsen with the character's needs; whose work has been lauded from Vladivostok to Seattle to Tokyo; passed away 3 months ago. Requiscat in pacem, Victor Baigulov. Requiscat in pacem, Luka.

LUKA: Some one has to be kind, girl -- some one has to pity people! Christ pitied everybody -- and he said to us: "Go and do likewise!" I tell you -- if you pity a man when he most needs it, good comes of it.

-- The Lower Depths, by Maxim Gorky