Soviet and Russian actress Alla Demidova, who turns 90 today, built a career on firsts. One of them was speaking the word ‘erection’ on a Russian stage.

Alla Demidova turned 90 on September 29. An actress, writer, and scholar of Russia’s Silver Age, she has always worked in film and theater with top-tier directors from Russia and abroad, including Andrei Tarkovsky, Kira Muratova, Yuri Lyubimov, Anatoly Efros, Roman Viktyuk, Kirill Serebrennikov, Giorgio Strehler, and Theodoros Terzopoulos. She has also brought new, sometimes radical writing to the stage, pursued literary research, and founded one of the Soviet Union’s first independent theaters. In an article for the independent journalists’ cooperative Bereg, theater critic Alla Shenderova examines how Demidova broke new ground. Meduza is publishing the article in full.

Demidova herself fits the type of Russian intellectual who is unhappy with the world around her, with society, and, above all, with herself and her own weakness, which keeps her from changing things. You can see it in almost every role she has played as a mature actress.

Other artists have even started borrowing this persona. Andrei Moguchy does so in “Kholopy” (“Serfs”), his best production to date. Playing Princess Plavutina-Plavuntsova, who voluntarily confines herself to a wheelchair rather than bow to the “hated tyrant” Paul I, actress Marina Ignatova copies Demidova’s appearance, her facial expression (a “mask” of self-dissatisfaction), and her bearing. Even the raven perched on the back of her chair is a direct reference to the now-classic film “Stakan vody” (“A Glass of Water”), in which Demidova played the Duchess of Marlborough.

To some, Demidova is a style icon, an intellectual diva. To others, she is a dry, guarded formalist. That last word needs explaining. In Russian theater, form — how a work is made — has long been set against content — what it is about. The opposition is somewhat absurd: in art, the two are hard to separate. It dates back to the mid-19th century, to the era of Mikhail Shchepkin and Vissarion Belinsky. In the 20th century, it became a campaign against “formalism” in art; under Stalin, an accusation of “formalism” could cost an artist their life.

Generations of Soviet and post-Soviet actors have remained wary of form. Demidova is an exception: an actress known for bold form, exquisitely detailed characterizations, and great daring. Throughout her career, she repeatedly tried to break new ground.

The first of her postwar generation unafraid to appear ‘intellectual’ on screen

In 1960s theater and film, intellectuals and creative figures were almost always men; women were shut out of such roles. Demidova was the first to play women like them. That kind of role became part of her repertoire after Igor Talankin’s 1966 film “Dnevnyye zvezdy” (“Daytime Stars”), in which the director took on an unusual cinematic challenge: showing how poetic images take shape in the mind. Demidova faced the same challenge playing the poet Olga Berggolts. The role placed her among intellectually engaged, spiritually searching performers — a lineage pioneered by Innokenty Smoktunovsky as Hamlet in Grigory Kozintsev’s film and as Myshkin in the Bolshoi Drama Theater’s production of “The Idiot” in Leningrad. She played similar roles as poets and scientists in “Chto takoye teoriya otnositelnosti?” (“What Is the Theory of Relativity?”) in 1964 and “Idu k tebe” (“I Come to You”) in 1971.

The first to try the ‘zero position’ technique

Demidova was in the Shchukin Theater School class for which Yuri Lyubimov, then a trainee teacher, decided to stage Bertolt Brecht’s “The Good Person of Szechwan” in 1962. Two years later, that production launched the Taganka Theater. Demidova was cast as the pilot’s mother, a woman older than she was. By many accounts, Lyubimov did not much like the “clever student.” Instead of shouting with passion, she spoke quietly: by her own admission, she simply could not raise her voice naturally. In time, she turned that “shortcoming” into an asset — a distinctive “technique of not showing emotion,” as critic Mikhail Brashinsky described it. In the 2000s, Mikhail Ugarov at Theater.doc began calling a similar technique “zero position” or “nonacting.” A related style appeared in Konstantin Bogomolov’s quiet productions in the 2010s.

The first woman in the postwar Soviet era to dare to play Hamlet, a classic male role

Demidova first played the Prince of Denmark while still at theater school, at the suggestion of Anna Orochko, a legendary student of Yevgeny Vakhtangov who had once rehearsed the same role with him. Later, she nearly played Hamlet for Nikolai Okhlopkov at the Mayakovsky Theater. There is even a famous photo shoot from the 1970s — “Thinking About Hamlet” would be an apt name for it — in which Demidova, wearing a white shirt and holding a rapier, seems to be, as we might say today, “blurring gender lines.” In the Soviet Union of the 1970s, that took extraordinary nerve.

But Demidova’s connection to the Danish prince goes further. Playing Gertrude in Yuri Lyubimov’s famous “Hamlet,” she fed her “son,” Vladimir Vysotsky, his lines, which she knew by heart. In 1999, Robert Wilson saw Demidova in “The Good Person of Szechwan” and immediately invited her to perform his solo production of “Hamlet.” She declined. But perhaps Wilson’s idea helped inspire “Gamlet-urok” (“Hamlet Lesson”), a production staged for her by the Greek director Theodoros Terzopoulos in 2001.

“So here I am playing Hamlet — forgive me,” Demidova said in the summer of 2001 in an interview on the program “Na noch glyadya” (“Before Bedtime”), as though apologizing for her age. She was 64. In fact, it made sense: over the years, Demidova had joined the ranks of international stars for whom age was no barrier. Sarah Bernhardt, for example, continued playing male roles, including Hamlet, into her sixties and beyond.

The first to play Chekhov’s Ranevskaya not as a lady of the manor but as a woman of the Decadent era — even something of a hippie

Anatoly Efros staged “Vishnevy sad” (“The Cherry Orchard”) at Lyubimov’s Taganka Theater in 1975. It proved a turning point for many involved, including Vysotsky, who played the merchant Lopakhin. Theater critic Anatoly Smelyansky gave one of the most vivid accounts of Demidova’s Ranevskaya, observing that she played the role almost as a tragedy. When she said, “I’ll have some coffee,” it sounded like “I’ll have some poison.” Many critics, including Maya Turovskaya, remarked on this Ranevskaya’s extraordinary sexuality; Turovskaya used the term “sex appeal.”

The intensity of her feelings, her irritation with her family, and her clear understanding that the estate could not be saved and that a gravely ill, unfaithful lover awaited her in Paris — all of it, combined with Demidova’s distinctive physical grace, made her Ranevskaya a woman of the Decadent era. She and the wardrobe staff came up with a flowing white dress with an embroidered neckline and a full skirt. She wore layers of necklaces over it, in keeping with 1970s bohemian fashion. The costume suggested both decadent decline and hippie style.

While preparing to play Ranevskaya, Demidova became fascinated by Art Nouveau and the Silver Age, whose history was difficult to explore in the Soviet Union of the 1970s. When she later traveled to France, she bought books of early 20th-century paintings, looking for portraits of women who might have inspired Chekhov’s Ranevskaya.

The first to perform Anna Akhmatova’s ‘Requiem’ in public, followed by her ‘Poema bez geroya’ (‘Poem Without a Hero’) and many other works of poetry

Demidova recited “Requiem” as early as 1987 at the Leningrad Philharmonic’s Grand Hall, accompanied by the Moscow Virtuosi orchestra under Vladimir Spivakov. That performance began a long series of poetry concerts for Demidova, who cannot sing in tune but has an uncommon feel for the rhythm of verse. She worked with leading conductors, including Yevgeny Kolobov on “Poema bez geroya” and Teodor Currentzis on “Nosferatu.” In the 2010s, she recorded an extensive poetry series for Radio Kultura that included work by many contemporary poets, among them Boris Ryzhy.

Among the first to produce literary scholarship on Akhmatova’s ‘Poema bez geroya’

Her research became the book “Akhmatovskiye zerkala” (“Akhmatova’s Mirrors”), which she worked on from the 1970s through the 2000s. It explores the real people behind the characters in Akhmatova’s poem. Demidova has published dozens of books in all. She began writing in the 1960s, following the example of her husband, screenwriter Vladimir Valutsky — though she wrote essays and memoirs rather than scripts. In the 1980s, she recorded her conversations with Smoktunovsky, later collected in the book “A skazhite, Innokenty Mikhaylovich…” (“And Tell Me, Innokenty Mikhaylovich…”). In the 1990s, she interviewed the artist Anatoly Slepyshev.

One of the first models for the legendary makeup artist and photographer Lev Novikov

It was Novikov who designed the makeup for Viktyuk’s “The Maids” and for Valentin Gneushev’s circus productions. He also helped Renata Litvinova create her look. He died at just 50. In his final years, he had AIDS; stars no longer trusted him to do their makeup, and he gradually turned to photography. Demidova was one of his first models and helped him until his final days. Another photographer who began his career with portraits of her was Vladimir Fridkes, a legendary member of the art collective AES+F.

The first to adapt Tsvetaeva’s ‘Fedra’ (‘Phaedra’) and bring it to the stage

In the late 1980s, after Yuri Lyubimov was stripped of his citizenship and Anatoly Efros was appointed artistic director of the Taganka Theater, Demidova, as usual, tried to stand apart and go her own way. She asked the young director Roman Viktyuk to stage Marina Tsvetaeva’s “Fedra,” a complex play, Futurist in form, that gives the emotions of characters in an ancient tragedy a contemporary voice.

Demidova made her own adaptation, combining “Fedra” with passages from Tsvetaeva’s diaries and her poems about the struggle to create art (“Laurels of praise in slabs on my brow. ‘I cannot sing!’ — ‘You will!’ — ‘I’m done for…’”). To the drama of a queen in love with her young stepson, she added that of a poet who feels her creative powers have run dry. Alongside its difficult avant-garde text, the production had elements of physical theater. Valentin Gneushev choreographed it, and Alberto Alonso himself, who had come to the Soviet Union at the height of perestroika, offered advice. As with Hamlet, the story of Phaedra did not end there.

The first Russian actress to receive offers from the celebrated directors Giorgio Strehler, Robert Wilson, Antoine Vitez, and Theodoros Terzopoulos

Strehler, who had staged “The Cherry Orchard” at his Piccolo Teatro di Milano, was thrilled by Efros’s production. He invited Demidova to Milan, where he was putting on an ambitious program called “Voices of the World.” According to accounts of the rehearsal, Demidova read poems by Silver Age poets while glancing at a cheat sheet to keep the rhythm of the verse. When Strehler noticed, he put a music stand in front of her, making the cheat sheet an overt part of the performance. Since then, a music stand holding poems instead of sheet music has been a hallmark of her performances. Strehler also asked her to think about what she might perform at his theater. They settled on Hedda Gabler, but the plan never came to fruition.

Footage from the Taganka Theater’s 1999 anniversary celebration shows Wilson rushing to embrace Demidova. She had returned to play the pilot’s mother for the anniversary, and Wilson was struck by the way she moved in the role. He immediately invited her to work with him. Instead of Hamlet, though, Demidova proposed playing Poprishchin in Gogol’s “Zapiski sumasshedshego” (“Diary of a Madman”). The project fell through because she became ill.

During a Paris tour in the second half of the 1980s, Antoine Vitez saw “The Cherry Orchard.” An actor, director, and left-wing intellectual, he was then artistic director of the Comédie-Française, Europe’s oldest state theater. Efros had died, as had Vysotsky, and a young actor was playing Lopakhin. But Demidova’s Ranevskaya made such an impression on Vitez that he immediately announced at a Soviet embassy reception that he wanted to work with her. During perestroika, such a collaboration was possible, and talks began. They chose “Phèdre” — Racine’s version this time, rather than Tsvetaeva’s.

Demidova could thus have become the first Russian actress to debut at the Comédie-Française. But the theater’s actresses were unwilling to accept a foreigner in the classic role. Vitez decided to move the project to another stage and hold the premiere in Moscow; he even managed to hold auditions. A couple of months later, however, he died, and it was never staged.

In 1989, Demidova used the fee she had received from Strehler to open the private Theater A, one of the Soviet Union’s first independent theaters, and the first to be founded by an actress and run without a permanent company, entirely on a contract basis.

First, she bought the Taganka Theater’s production of “Fedra.” Then she invited Terzopoulos to stage German playwright Heiner Müller’s “Quartett,” a postmodern version of Choderlos de Laclos’s “Dangerous Liaisons.” Its characters swap genders and love each other, yet drive each other to suicide. By the time “Quartett” had been translated into Russian and Demidova could read it in full, it was too late to back out.

The reserved intellectual turned out to be a daring outsider — among other things, she became the first person to say the word “erection” on a Russian stage. In truth, though, Terzopoulos’s highly stylized production was about modern people’s unresolved trauma, with the “ruins of Europe” still looming behind them, rather than about sex. Demidova’s stage partner, who switched genders with her during the performance and even wore women’s makeup, was Dmitry Pevtsov, now a prominent pro-war “Z patriot.”

The first major actress to recognize Kirill Serebrennikov’s talent

In 2000, she accepted an offer from Serebrennikov, who had directed many productions in Rostov-on-Don theaters and on television but was entirely unknown in Moscow. His multipart television project based on Bunin’s “Temnye allei” (“Dark Avenues”) premiered on the channel Avtorskoye Televideniye. Demidova read Bunin as characters from his early 20th-century stories appeared on screen. A year later, Serebrennikov staged his first production in Moscow, and Demidova offered him a chance to assist Robert Wilson on the planned “Diary of a Madman.” Their collaboration and friendship lasted throughout Serebrennikov’s years working in Russia. Their most recent project together is a new version of “Poema bez geroya,” which they directed jointly and Demidova performed at the Gogol Center.

The first actress Anatoly Vasilyev wanted to work with after a long absence from Russia

In 2006, Vasilyev, one of Russia’s most significant contemporary directors, lost his theater, the School of Dramatic Art, and left the country for many years. He returned in 2017 to create a production with Demidova based on Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea.” Its form — an actress sitting at a table reading the text — was so fully realized that it effectively became the content: an ode to fearless, reckless masters of their craft. The production’s dedication to the memory of Yuri Lyubimov was no accident.