ABSTRACT
Yuri Butusov has shocked and intrigued theatregoers in Moscow and Petersburg alike since his graduation production of Beckett’s Waiting for Godot in 1996. A true ‘post dramatic’ director, he takes on large texts – Shakespeare, Chekhov, Brecht, and more – and, in a highly collaborative manner, distorts, reshuffles the text at hand into a new form that somehow manages to both transmogrify the play and reveal its inner heart. Audacious, wildly funny at times, despairing for his homeland at other times, his theatricality is always rambunctious, and ricochets with unexpected performance choices by the actors, impermanent scenic elements, and always music, music, music. The chapter looks at his rigorous schooling with a disciple of Tovstonogov and Katsman, his idiosyncratic approach to directing, his goals for audience engagement, and takes a capsule look at his brilliant production of Chekhov’s The Seagull. The conclusion is a set of quotations from Butusov about recently departing from Russia, probably forever.
