Jon Pashley

Marina Vlady

posted at 11:00 pm on 12 February 2010

Always beautiful, enchanting and a little scary – Marina Vlady in La Sorcière.

Prompted by a discussion in a seminar last week which touched briefly on the career of Russian poet, actor and singer/songwriter Vladimir Vysotsky, I’ve been reminiscing about a performance I saw in Paris a couple of years ago. Marina Vlady, a famed actress in her own right and Vysotsky’s widow, performed a dramatization of her biography of Vysotsky, Vladimir Vysotsky, ou le vol arreté, as a one-woman show, accompanied by two guitarists.

It was undoubtedly an unforgettable evening! It was our second of two trips to the Bouffes du Nord (a couple of nights earlier we had seen Irina Brook’s adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, En attendant le songe) and we were sat right on the front row.

Vlady addressed the audience directly. She told us about his life before they met and relived their passionate falling in love. Her story moved quickly and excitingly around the world, shuttling between the intensely personal and the incredibly public nature of their lives in Russia and then in exile. Her story was punctuated by Vlady singing some of her husband’s songs – all in Russian with a French translation projected behind. She sang everything with such tremendous sincerity and depth of feeling: at times deeply moving, tears in her eyes; at others, she was whipping up a storm in a downtown bar.

This was no simple biography, however, and the performance often strayed into thrilling strange and disconcerting arenas. There was, for example, a refrain which broke the action: a sound of thunder and then black and white footage of Vysotsky’s eyes projected onto a hanging screen. At this, Vlady, appearing greatly distressed, would cry: ‘Le tonnerre!’ and ‘Les yeux! Il nous regarde!’ (’The thunder!’, ‘The eyes. He’s watching us!’ before continuing. Frequently, she would address her husband whilst looking at his projected image. The effect was akin to eavesdropping on a seance; it was a private moment in which we were intruding. Quickly, though, we were back in the story or another foot-stomping number.

There were a couple of worrying moments for us in the front row:

1. A guitarist delivered to Vlady a letter from her husband, which she received in surprise. She read some of it aloud and began distributing sheets to members of the audience. Panicked that we would have to read, my mind raced to find the words ‘I’m sorry, my French is poor. Perhaps someone else should…’ in French. Thankfully we weren’t given anything and no-one read – I can only think they were given as keepsakes.
2. After telling us how Vysotsky had played Hamlet in the Bouffes du Nord, she then described a ball which had taken place in the theatre. The house lights came up and she appeared to be looking for a dance partner in our general direction. I had never been so glad to hear that thunder come back!

Despite its scariness, it was a gripping performance. A personal highlight for us was her rendition of a particularly raucous song in Russian about Mao Tse-Tung.

Coincidentally, it was after that show, as we were making our way from the métro to our hotel, that I asked Neil to marry me – and he said yes.