Projects
THEATRE
The Lioness of Aquitaine
Based of the play ’The Lion in Winter’, by L. Goldmen
Premiered on 08.10.2010, Lenkom Theatre
Director — Gleb Panfilov
Set design — Andris Freisberg
Costumes — Christina Pasternak
Sketches of Eleanore’s costumes — Victoria Sevryukova
Lighting — Sergei Skonretsky
Choreography — Irina Filippova
Project producer — Mark Varshaver
Cast
Inna Churikova — Elenaore of Aquitaine, queen, wife of Henry II
Dmitry Pevtsov — Henry II, King of the Enlgish
Sergei Piotrovsky — Richard the Lionheart, eldest son
Dmitry Gisbrecht — Goeffry, middle son
Igor Konyakhin — John, youngest son
Alla Yuganova — Alice, French Princess
About the play
“The Lioness of Aquitaine is a stunning play, an unusual story full of sharp collisions; it is a gripping narrative filled with intrigues at the court and with behind-the-scenes battles. This material cannot but entice!”
— Inna Churikova
“In the Lenkom version of the play the focus is placed on the ’lioness’, for one sole reason — Lenkom has Inna Churikova, indeed, a magnificent lady in all respects. A true lioness in other words. Moreover, the entire play was devised wholly by Gleb Panfilov. Perhaps, this is why the play does not entire ’Lenkom-like’. However, there is no doubt that it is a definite award-nominee and a winner! An outstanding work in all respects.”
— Julia Yakovleva, Forbes (Russia)
“A popular film-maker Gleb Panfilov directed this play based on the historical text of an US writer James Goldmen ’The Lion in Winter’. The acting partner for the leading star, Inna Churikova, is a popular film and theatre actor Dmitry Pevtsov, who plays the part of Henry II. The events take place in Shenon Castle during the times of reign of Henri II in XII century. The play tells the story of a complex relationship between the parents of Richard the Lionheart — King Henri II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, a powerful and influential woman. Being used to deciding upon the fates of other people and nations they appears powerless when it comes to the fates of their own family. Churikova considers herself lucky to have obtained this part: ’Eleanor is a fascinating woman, who is faced with similar problems to those we have nowadays — family, children, parents and their relationships’, she explains. ’A Lion in Winter’ is widely considered as one of the best drama legacies of the 20th century. Since it’s premiere on Broadway in 1966, it stood the test of a number of stage interpretations and of two great screen adaptations — starring Peter O’Tool and Catherine Hepburn in 1968 and a 2003 version featuring Glenn Close and Patrick Stuart, directored by Andrey Konchalovsky”
— RIA Novosti, Vladimir Fedorenko
“Inna Churikova, Dmitri Pevtsov and the youth of Lenkom theatre, accompanied by the authentic music, perform an American play about the British Plantagenets. King Henry II (Dmitry Pevtcov) is determined to do anything to stop his heirs from treating apart the county, and his wife, Eleanor, performed by Inna Churikova, hides behind a mask of a great intriguer, a genuine pain of an abandoned woman, who earns to save her family at any costs”
— Afisha Magazine
“...Sorry”
1992, Lenkom Theatre
Director — Gleb Panfilov
Producer — David Smelyanksy
Production designer — David Borovsky
Composer — Vadim Bibergan
Choreography — Dmitry Bryantsev
Credits
Inna Churikova — Inna Rassadina
Nikolai Karachentsov — Yuri Zvonarev
Responses:
“’...Sorry’(Lenkom Theatre together with Russian theatre agency of David Smelyanksy). The charm of the play by Alexander Galinin, it’s authentic contemporaneity, a brilliant duet of Churikova and Karachenstov, a masterful direction of Gleb Panfilov — all these factors determined the success of the play in all auditoriums, as well as its amazing longevity”
— Lenkom theatre website
“I would call our time, if not the time of dead souls than the time of half-living. Live vanishes... People wake up, get up, move around, make some purchases... But in their thoughts they are far away, in the past or in the future. Everyone wants simply to live through the present day. But these very ‘present days’ form peoples lives, and it is unknown how many days are there to live through. The play ‘...Sorry’ is about how people try to put their scattered souls back together and to make them alive.”
— Alexander Galin
“The play creates an indivisible universe where almost anything is possible except finding satisfactory answers to the hardest questions. What could give more veritable picture of Russian life?”
— “The Moscow Times” 11-09-92
Hamlet
1986, Lenkom Theatre
Director — Gleb Panfilov
Production designer — O. Sheintsis
Composer — A. Rybnikov
Cast:
Oleg Jankovsky — Hamlet
Alexander Zbruev — Claudius
Inna Churikova — Gertrude
Mikhail Kozakov — Polonius
Alexandra Zakharova — Ophelia
Alexander Abdulov — Laertes
2nd Cast
Dmitry Pevtsov — Hamlet
Alexander Lazarev Jr. — Claudius
Inna Churikova — Gertrude
Vsevolod Larionov — Polonious
Alexandra Zakharova — Ophelia
Viktor Rakov — Laertes
Responses:
“[...] at the rise of the Perestroika era, it was Panfilov who has put „Hamlet“ on the stage of Lenkom theatre. In the classical plot he foresaw a meta-plot of the times to come. Of times where actions (not „words, words“, but actions) were regarded as crimes. Panfilov was the only one to present an individual, who after a suicide attempt becomes part of the masses, becomes like everyone else. Intellectual reflections are out of place in the times of military actions and materialising signs of freedom. In Panfilov’s „Hamlet“, everyone was in the state of collapse”
— “Art of Cinema”
“[Some] critics read Panfilov’s Hamlet as a blunt fascist, a fanatic who does not spare any means to reach his goals. This unique interpretation shocks the viewers, who are used to see a contemplative Hamlet.”
— Elena Gorfunkel, Tatyana Moskvina, Leonid Popov, “Cinema and Context”, Séance, 2002
Inna Churikova — actress (Gertrude)
“I felt very comfortable being directed by him on stage. I believe that Gleb is equally a cinema and a theatre director. There were so many revelations in his „Hamlet“, and it truly was a wonderful production — Jankovksy’s Hamlet, Zakharova’s Ophelia, Zbruev’s King, Abdulov’s Laertes. However, theatre is a very special organism to accommodate everyone equally well. The ‘outsiders’ rarely stay for a long time, and alas are frequently rejected by this organism”
Alexandra Zakharova — actress (Ophelia)
“I am so grateful to Gleb Panfilov, the director, and husband of Inna Churikova, who came to Lenkom to put on the play and who gave me the part of Ophelia.”
Mikhail Kozakov — actor (Polonius)
“Panfilov made a decision that Hamlet should be a political involved person, almost a party member. He even had him walking into the mother’s bedroom with guards. Why? As Panfilov explained, it is because he is no longer a young boy, he is aware that he is leading a political battle with the king. Therefore he is expecting the enemy to attack even in his mother’s bedroom.”