THE PARABLE OF A PANTOMIME DIRECTOR

Sometimes you don't need words to say a lot. Movements, gestures and mime may be sufficiently expressive so that the actor is capable of causing his audience anxiety or making them laugh, when he is recreating for them human characters and stories without saying a single word. The chief director and founder of the Azerbaijan State Pantomime Theatre, People's Artiste Baxtiyar Xanizada believes that body language never deceives. For up to 80 per cent of the information that we receive from someone we are talking to takes the form of gestures, mime and poses.

- The Pantomime Theatre is more than 20 years old. Has it turned out that you have had to change the flippant attitude of the Azerbaijani spectator to this form of stage art?

- There were not many people who believed that Azerbaijani audiences would understand and accept pantomime, but we have managed to get people to really like us. This happened quite accidentally and unexpectedly. Before 1994 there was not a single pantomime theatre in Baku. I decided to fill this gap and suggested to Hasanaga Turabov who was head of the Theatre Society at that time that we organise the first pantomime festival. He liked my idea and supported my undertaking. At that moment, my students and I had already performed a pantomime. The theatre festival, which took place at the Theatre of the Young Spectator was a huge success! We played to a full house. The spectators sat on chairs between the rows of seats. I have to admit that we ourselves did not expect such a rapid and stunning success. But I think the reason for this love at first sight was that the language of the pantomime was understandable to everyone. It is no accident that pantomime is quite rightly regarded as the most international form of art. The day after the festival, the minister of culture at that time, Polad Bulbuloglu signed the order for the "Crazy Mob" ("Dalilar Yigincagi") theatre studio to be set up.

- Where did such a funny name come from?

- This was the name of our troupe which took part in the first pantomime festival. Where did this name come from? No-one expects crazy people to act in a serious way, but at times they are wiser and more honest than the cleverest and most educated people. Over the ages, incidentally practically all geniuses were considered mad right up to the time when their inventions really began to work. This is usually the case. I believe that genius and madness are interlinked.

- How complicated is the pantomime genre? Is it easy to do without words?

- In pantomime it is important not to look, but to see, not to hear but to listen. The pantomime bears the essence of dramatic art - all that is most valuable is found in visual art, in pure, crystallised form. The word "pantomime" comes from two Greek words, the combination of which means art capable of reproducing everything, of imitating everything. The art of pantomime came into being in Ancient Greece long before our era. The Greeks believed that the pantomime actor was not only capable of turning into gods and heroes, into men and women, youths and old people by changing his appearance, but that he should also express "people's dispositions and passions". There cannot be any accidental or senseless gestures in the pantomime. The gesture in the pantomime should be the most precise, timely and necessary.

I believe that the theatrical art as a whole is a science which should not be dealt with in a slipshod manner. Of late, alas the attitude to the theatre has started to be a frivolous and irresponsible one. Today some people think that you do not need to study drama and you can do anything that comes into your head on the stage. Everyone thinks that he is a professional actor or director without any grounds for it. You know, none of us can decide to become a mathematician, an architect or a composer in one or two days. In any profession you need to study painstakingly for a long time. There can be no practice without theory. I often reiterate to my students that an actor should perform aerobatics on the stage, after which the spectator will admit that he could never copy anything like that.

In the modern world, alas, people have forgotten how to speak with their body movements and mime. Today a person learns to express his or her emotions and feelings through speech. At times, it is easy to conceal the genuine feelings and desires behind words. I will tell you a parable that I made up myself. When the Almighty created the first people, he did not give them the ability to speak. People communicated with each other with gestures and body movements, behind which it was impossible to hide lies, deception and insincerity. The people asked God to provide them with an adaptation that would allow them to hide certain desires and feelings from one another. So, the Almighty gave them speech and language. In our time non-verbal language in communicating is still remembered, but only children and animals use it. Adults have long forgotten how to communicate using body language.

- You have 10 actors at your theatre. It would be interesting to learn how you chose them. What should the pantomime theatre actor be able to do?

- First and foremost I chose those who were educated and well brought up. An actor like that will hear me, which means that you can mould anything you like from him. This does not mean he is obedient, but he hears what I tell him. The second thing on which I focused in selecting the actors was that they should have a sincere desire to work on the stage. If you don't have that, even talent will not help you. Incidentally, I believe that all people without exception are talented from birth. It is simply that not everyone is able to understand and discover his true destiny.

- When you are working on a production, do you contemplate what emotions it will evoke in the audience?

- Most definitely. This is because I can't put up with unexpected things happening. For me they are completely unacceptable. Any unexpected incident on the stage or in the auditorium is the equivalent of a lack of professionalism. We spend a long time working on a production, we discuss it and rehearse it. I always know 100 per cent in which part of the scene the audience will hold its breath and in which part of the scene they will have tears in their eyes. I am a kind of director who is responsible for a single artistic interpretation of the work by all the musicians, the actors in our troupe's orchestra.

- We would like to hear something about you, Baxtiyar muallim [term of respect when addressing an Azerbaijani man] How did you come to choose the theatre?

- I was born in the Baku village of Sagan. My father was a lathe operator and my mother a housewife. When I was young, I used to draw, make different figures out of wood, plaster, plasticine and papier-mache and would even engrave metal. I would pick up any piece of iron and a saw and try to carve something out of this material. And you know, I managed it… My parents and my teachers thought that I would become a sculptor or an artist, and I did imagine myself exclusively as doing something creative. In the senior classes I took up drama and decided to enrol on the Adil Iskendarov course at the Azerbaijan State University of Culture and Arts.

When I was on the first course, the film director Alisattar Atakisiyev invited me to play the main role in the film of the fairy tale "Qarib in the Land of the Genies", where I played the part of two twins, Qarib and Sahib. When I finished studying I was assigned to Ganca State Drama Theatre, and then I worked at the teaching theatre of my native Baku institution of higher education and at the "Azerbaijanfilm" studio. In the mid-1980s I began to teach at the University of Culture and Art and somewhat later I decided to continue my education and enrolled on a post-graduate course at what was then the Leningrad Cherkasov State Institute of Theatre, Music and Cinematography. Then I returned to my homeland where I got a job as a lecturer in the department of "Stage Movement and Choreography" at the Azerbaijan University of Culture and Arts.

- The most difficult production at your theatre.

- (thinks for a minute) It is hard to answer this question. It was probably the production based on the short story "Kesa and Morito" by my favourite Akutagawa Ryunosuke. We staged it 10 times in three years! Every time I completed the script and rehearsed it, I noticed shortcomings and began to stage it all over again until I understood that the production could be shown to an audience. That was very labour-intensive, but an incredibly interesting work process!

I remember that 15 years ago I staged Chingiz Aitmatov's "Mankurt" ["The Slave"] at the Pantomime Theatre and recently I decided to give this pantomime a new lease of life or, to use film speak, to produce a "remake" of it. You will say why copy it? The fact is that the original "Mankurt" was Aimatov's, but in the latest version I have revealed my own personal attitude to Mankurt's behaviour.

Up to the present day, the following pantomimes have been staged at the Pantomime Theatre: "Hope" by S. Becket ("A One-Man Mime"); my "Pantomime Bouquet"; "Mask" by Zaur Zeynalov, "The Frame" by A. Abdullayev; "Deja Vu" by S. Haciyeva; "Mankurt" based on motifs from Chingiz Aitmatov's tale "The Day Lasts More than a Hundred Years"; "The Potter" from the work by Uzeyir Hacibayov "What on Earth are we Creating" and many others.

- Is pantomime able to convey the entire spectrum of human feelings? Or are there somethings that it cannot do?

-You can convey any emotions and any mood with the help of non-verbal language. Body language never deceives. The audience perceives the action occurring on the stage precisely as it was thought up initially. Throughout the entire production the actors do not utter a single word, but the audience understands everything without that. The actors speak with them through movements and gestures. I don't like to follow the beaten track. It is much more interesting for me to do something new, something unexplored and unusual. I like a fresh approach to work on a show. Before starting work on a new production, I spend a long time thinking about the concept and the main idea of the future show. If I feel that I do not have anything to say to the audience, that there is no definite spiritual message and thought pattern, I put it on the back burner, as the saying goes, until the time is right.

I remember that once the Ministry of Culture suggested that I should stage the poem "Leyli and Macnun" by the great Fizuli, which they planned to present in Moscow. I spent a long time worrying about it, thinking how I would convey all the emotions and feelings of the main characters in the pantomime ballet in such a way that people who had never read this work would understand and connect with the main characters. But I didn't manage to come up with anything at that time. I rang the ministry and turned the job down. Six months later, when I was not feeling very well and was resting at home for a whole day, listening to my favourite symphonic mugam by Bayati Shiraz, suddenly the entire plot of the future "Leyli and Macnun" show took shape before my very eyes. The next day I got my actors together and in 25 days I put on the pantomime ballet which was a huge success with audiences, not only in Azerbaijan, but abroad as well.