The Day has met with the actress who performs the leading part of Grandmother in the play of Lithuania’s Russian Drama Theater at the international festival “Theater. Chekhov. Yalta.” On stage Inga Mashkarina is a bag of nerves and a tyrant woman (the colorful character in Marius Matsavicius’ production based on the much-hyped short story by Pavel Sanayev Bury Me Behind the Baseboard, director: Agnius Jankevicius). Her performing was so bright that it made one shiver. The audience could not even imagine that several hours before the performance the actress lost her voice and had to call the doctor. She did not spare herself, crying and playing as it were her last performance on stage. In the finale the audience and all jurors gave her a standing ovation, some people even cried.
Rubbishy Love is a story told by an eight-year-old boy Sasha Savelyev, who lives with his grandparents. His grandmother does not trust the child to her daughter’s care. She blames her “dissolute” daughter, who found a new husband, and considers him an “untalented artist,” “parasite dwarf” and “alcoholic.” Her unreserved love for her grandson gives way to excessive care and domestic tyranny.
Behind the scenes, Inga turned out to be a young and beautiful woman with eastern brown eyes, open and friendly. Our conversation began with her character Grandmother Nina Antonovna in the play Rubbishy Love (this production has already won awards in theater festivals in Odesa and Yalta).
“Certainly, the image of Grandmother is complicated. Psychologically it was hard for me to get the feel of this role,” Mashkarina admitted, “I am very fond of children. During rehearsals I tried to find something positive in this character. Grandmother’s deeds and words not only hurt, they cut her family to the heart. Nina Antonovna is a masterful woman with unstable psychics, who has devoted her whole life to her family (husband, daughter, and grandson). This role is a mixture of many colors, with time her deeds and words become simply murderous. Good and bad things are closely intertwined in her character. Life has made her cruel and angry, and her grandson is her joy and source of constant worries. She cannot imagine her life without Sasha (a second-grade pupil), whom she has raised since his early childhood. That is why the play is called Rubbishy Love. It tells about pathologically perverted love. While playing, I try to justify my heroine, though for me personally her actions are inadmissible. You know, I have dreamed about theater since I was a child, yet it takes the second place in my life. I have devoted myself to my family, my children. I must admit it is very hard for me to abuse my scenic grandson Sasha. But a role is a role. An actor should force himself/herself.”
Director Sergey Snezhkin has shot a film Bury Me Behind the Baseboard after Pavel Sanayev’s eponymous story. Though it has quite a starry lineup (Svetlana Kryuchkova, Aleksei Petrenko, Maria Shukshina), the critics have ascribed it to depressive cinema. One cannot say the same about your production, though the audience cries during the performance (first of laughter, later from emotions). The production appears to be psychological, but it does not make the audience feel pessimistic. It is clear that love for her family forces Grandmother to curse her family for all it is worth, but she loves them deeply.
“I haven’t seen the film, but I have heard similar responses. You have observed correctly — the most important thing in our play is love. So, our plan was a success: we have made a production about love. And love helped me to create the image of Grandmother. It is a collective one. I have observed many grandmothers. They may shout and swear, yet they are deeply fond of their grandchildren. My heroine, too, passionately loves her grandson. That is why she does not want to give him to her daughter, whom she loves deeply as well. She also loves her husband Semen Mikhailovich, but she never says any good word about him. Life has spoiled my heroine, and the kindness of her soul went somewhere deep, leaving only brutality on the surface. Nina Antonovna’s role is very deep, and it seems to me that not only has it changed me as an actress, but it might also change my life in the theater.”
Your performance on stage produces an impression that you have also gone through many hardships. Is this so?
“Indeed, my way to the stage was not simple. I dreamed of becoming an actress, but that was inadmissible for my family. I was born and grew up in Tbilisi, and in the Caucasus in Soviet times, it was regarded indecent for a girl from a good family to become an actress or singer. My grandmother said that nobody would marry an actress. A girl should follow some decent profession — become a doctor, a pharmacist, or a tailor at the very least. The profession of an actress was considered something horrible. Once I mentioned my dreams of theater, our entire family gathered and started to put me to shame. So I had to forget about acting. My father is an Armenian (Sergo Suganian), my mother is half-Armenian half-Georgian (nee Avanesova-Naimanidzer), and I took my husband’s surname, Mashkarina. I married a Russian from Vilnius and moved to Lithuania to live with him. I have been living in Vilnius for 21 years. I have children, two of them, Elizaveta and Roman, 20 and 16 years old, respectively. I gave birth to Elizaveta when I was 24, and Roman was born on my birthday (I was 33).”
Your husband is not an actor?
“Thank Lord, he is not. Two actors in a family, that’s too much.”
When did theater appear in your life?
“First, it was for a short while. Then, when I was 34, I once came across a newspaper that said that Lithuania’s Russian Drama Theater needed ‘fresh blood.’ I immediately started calling and asked, ‘Who’s feeling unwell? What group of blood is needed?’ My husband heard and said, laughing: ‘Read attentively, fresh blood is in inverted commas.’ I continued reading and saw that a new course is being created. Later it turned out that no Russian course had been made for 10 or 15 years. The students were enrolled by Prof. Dalia Tamuleviciute, God rest her soul. She was an outstanding person. She was a student of the famous actress and director Maria Knebel. I will remain thankful to her, because if not for her, there would have been no actress Inga Mashkarina. My husband understood why I wanted to pass the exam, though he noted that it was too late for me to try for an actress. Besides, at the time I was taking care not only of our children, but also of my sick father. I prepared for exams at night. I came to the audition, sang, and recited Tsvetaeva’s poems. Suddenly they asked me how old I was. I told the truth. They told me they thought I was 26. The members of the commission wondered, how I was going to study with younger students. Understanding that they might refuse, I still caught at a straw. I proposed to dance, perform some jazz composition, I said, ‘You can mould of me whatever you like.’ I saw that they liked my improvisation, but I did not see my name on the list afterwards. I am a pushy person; I could not accept the situation. I came to the commission and asked why did I fail? They replied that everything fine with me, but there is a problem — the age, I had lived my life through. I replied, ‘I have lived my life through, but not the life of an actress. I have a background I will need on stage. Take me at least on probation. Give me a chance!’ I was trying to prove and cried. Then Tamuleviciute said, ‘You will study for six months. If you will not succeed, you will have to leave.’ And I began to study: I passed my exams earlier than other students and managed to do everything. As a student I used to parody Laima Vaikule, Nadezhda Kadysheva, Lyudmila Gurchenko. I slept 1.5 hours a day. I don’t understand how I could manage everything. Then I was called to the dean’s office and told that I would stay, and I was in seventh heaven. Afterwards I even entered the magistracy. Those were the most interesting years. For me studying is like giving birth to children. Then another stage began, I had to prove by my work that it was not without a reason that they gave me a chance. I entered the professional stage not as an inexperienced girl, but a dame with a family. I am grateful to the company for their support. We are very closely bound, in terms of work. We have been united by the performance Rubbishy Love. It is very fresh (its premiere took place on March 6). Before the Yalta festival we had shown it only three or four times. We have taken part in the International Theater Festival Meetings in Odesa, and I am glad that this production has not left the audience indifferent and that it was highly appraised by professional theater connoisseurs.”
You have not played any serious part before Grandmother?
“It’s not true. there was my diploma work, Katerina Marmeladova in Crime and Punishment. I have also played Vyazemskaya in Heart of a Dog, Lidia Ivanovna in Anna Karenina, a chorus soloist in The Living Corpse, the Queen of Spades in Hohol’s Gamblers, Lady-in-Waiting Katerina Golovkina in Balakirev the Buffoon. I have played many roles, both big and small. For example, in Woe from Wit I played a tiny role (a 90-year-old woman). But for me in any role it is important to show my best. It seems to me that with the help of absolute sincerity one can touch the audience’s soul. I have one actor’s show in my repertoire, where I perform on stage for 1.5 hours without an intermission. I sing songs of various peoples. I am going to make a concert based on the poems by Marina Tsvetaeva, Anna Akhmatova, Osip Mandelstam, and Boris Pasternak. At the moment I am collecting poems of Georgian poets.”
Is the Russian Drama Theater popular in Vilnius?
“Yes, the hall is never empty. Not only Russian-speakers come to the performances, 50 percent of the audience is made up by Lithuanians. The fact that they bring children to the performance is also very gratifying.”
What works are in your repertoire?
“Various, both classical and modern. There are many comedies. We are also making show programs. We are trying not only to satisfy everyone’s taste, but also foster good taste among the audience. However, to my regret I notice that nowadays people like easy things. Clearly, they are tired and come to the theater to laugh, relax, and leave their problems aside. But superficiality has never brought to anything good, and it will not bring emotional comfort. So, we should satisfy the audience and not get lower than a certain level. Our theater is run by the state, but we receive little subsidies. Our life is hard, but we are trying to make ends meet. Theater cannot exist without new productions, moreover, the Russian diaspora is small, and we have to stage more performances. We produce four to six premieres a year. We are planning to make eight ones this year. Our company is mobile. The administration of our theater has raised the question of equipping the premises with an interpretation system (this would attract people who do not know Russian), but at the moment we cannot afford it as the budget is very small. Incidentally, the head of the theater Jonas Vaitkus has mentioned that there are plans to take part in the organization of the festival Golden Mask, which acquired in 2009 great recognition among the Lithuanian audience, but it is impossible to hold such a large-scale event without state support.”
Have you ever been to Ukraine before?
“As a child. It is the first time that I come here on tour. Thank you for inviting us to the festival in the Crimea. We even flew here. This year I have been lucky to visit Odesa and Illichivsk — everywhere we had full houses. I walked across Odesa, listening to the language, it is so colorful! Now I am dreaming of playing a Jewish grandmother or mother. There are so many colors. Every word is a gem. Before the performance I shared my impressions of the city and people, and my fellows laughed, saying that I was already speaking with the Odesa accent. I very much liked Sevastopol and Yalta. We are ready to give three performances a day. Please invite us for tours. We will be glad to accept Ukrainian theaters as well.”
Do you know Lithuanian?
“Yes. I won’t boast of knowing it perfectly, just on a spoken level. My children’s command of Lithuanian is perfect; they speak it without any accent. They also have a fluent command of English. My daughter speaks some Georgian and Armenian. My son wants to. When he was small, we spoke Georgian and Armenian, and then he forgot them a bit: I went to study, then — to work, I did not have time to speak different languages.”
Have your parents changed their minds about you being an actress?
“No, mother still does not understand what it is. She has never seen me on stage. Father, when I brought him to Vilnius, was seriously ill, and he could not go to the theater. He dreamt to see me on stage. I told him about our company, rehearsed at home, and it was interesting for him to see all this. He was a very colorful man; he looked like actor Sergo Zakariadze. At first he was a football player, then a coach, he was acquainted with the legendary Lev Yashin.”
Haven’t you received invitations to play in cinema?
“I have played small roles, very insignificant, and those films are hardly known to anyone. I have the wrong look for Lithuanian cinema: I am not blonde, my eyes are not blue. I dream that film directors will pay attention to me. I am full of vigor, emotional and energetic. You know I have been learning from Lithuanians to be even-tempered. But my genes have their effect.
“When we came to Odesa I started to speak with a Jewish accent. My fellows warned me not to play an Odesa grandmother on stage. I am extremely fond of parodying people, I am good at this, maybe that is why I catch everything so quickly and begin to behave like other people. I very much want to play diverse roles, not only comic roles, but tragic as well.
“I am happy that I have found myself in the Russian Drama Theater, the only Russian theater in Lithuania. We must maintain our reputation and we are trying to do so, though it is difficult. The young generation comes, and they speak a language different from the literary Russian in which I studied. The Polish-Lithuanian influence can also be felt. Our artistic director Jonas Vaitkus understands this and invites language teachers from St. Petersburg. I also attend these classes. An actor is a profession that requires constant training; one should study all the time.”
