Biography
Parents
Victor Denisov was born on 17 January 1944 in Moscow to a family of classical musicians. The father Leon Sachs (20 April 1918, Windsor (Canada) – 20 August 1977, Athens (Greece) was a Soviet musician, a virtuoso violinist, the principal violin of the Bolshoy Theater Symphony Orchestra, one of the leading pedagogues of the Soviet violin school.
The mother Muza Denisova (8 August 1922, Kaluga – 23 October 2003, Moscow) was a Soviet piano pedagogue, a pianist; one of the leading pedagogues of the Gnessin Seven Year School.
Early years
When Denisov turned seven, he started studying the violin art from his father Leon Sachs at the Gnessin Seven Year School. When 11, he performed on the stage of the conservatory's Smaller Chamber Hall amongst other gifted students. After four years of instruction, Victor has abandoned his music studies against the will of his parents. In the last years of middle school he became infatuated with jazz: he played the French horn and then the trumpet at the Loktev Song and Dance Ensemble. However, V. Denisov had no desire to become a musician. From little up, he was attracted by letters, not by sounds.
The love of theater was a legacy from his father. L.Sachs came to the Bolshoy as a violin soloist, worked there for 32 years and never stopped admiring its festivity and grandeur. His son followed him along to rehearsals and performances since early childhood. At the age of five, impressed by Mikhail Glinka's opera «Ruslan and Lyudmila» Victor Denisov has first endeavored to write a play. It was called «Khalvin and Khalvitsa».
Victor's maternal grandfather Nikolay Denisov has been a descendant of an aristocratic family, a graduate of the Lomonosov Moscow State University's medical department, a military doctor and a big admirer of theater. On Christmas he often entertained domestic performances and himself participated in them. When a high school senior, V. Denisov has also performed on the stage – he played the Baron in Maxim Gorky's «The Lower Depths» (in a school production) and even considered applying to an acting school. Yet the thirst for words took the upper hand, and in 1962 (just like his grandfather) he entered the philological department of the Lomonosov Moscow State University (MGU).
Career
In 1967 Denisov graduated from MGU having majored in the three following disciplines: Russian as a foreign language, English and foreign literature. From 1967 to 1968 he worked as a reader at the Intourist – the only foreign tourist organization in the USSR of the 60s. From 1968 to 1970 he taught Russian as a foreign language at the preparatory department of MGU, and from 1970 to 1975 – at the Russian department of Patrice Lumumba Peoples' Friendship University. From 1977 to 1982 Denisov lectured on foreign literature at the Maurice Thorez Moscow State Pedagogical Institute of Foreign Languages.
From 1978 to 1990 Denisov served as a literary consultant, a senior academic editor of the Progress Publishers – Soviet Union's main publishing house for literature in foreign languages. Denisov was in charge of studying and analyzing the Anglophone book market abroad; he selected books for purchase and wrote reviews for books published by Penguin Books, Pan Books, Granada Publishing and the Scottish printing company William Collins, Sons. It was thanks to V. Denisov's involvement that the Russian book market first saw the original works of Samuel Beckett, Saul Bellow, Ray Bradbury, Anthony Burgess, Graham Greene, Aldous Huxley, James Joyce, D.H. Lawrence, Somerset Maugham, George Orwell, J.B. Priestly, Peter Ustinov, Gore Vidal, Kurt Vonnegut, Evelyn Waugh, Oscar Wilde, Tennessee Williams and many others.
From 1992 to 1996 Denisov worked as the literary director assistant at the «Laboratory» Drama Theater (Moscow). From 1997 to 1999 he served as the deputy of the Theater Messenger's editor-in-chief.
From 2002 onwards Victor Denisov is engaged exclusively in the writing of plays.
Creative Work
In 1968 Denisov wrote his first play – «Terrarium». The experience of working at the Intourist and the aftermath of the Prague Spring of 1968 served as the creative impetus. The play's form is a dramaturgic fantasy, in which an employee of a tourist firm is eaten by her colleagues and the firm's president under a dressing; yet, in essence, the play is a theatrical satire on the Soviet reality. The author took arms against the falsehood, hypocrisy and dogmas, which invaded life and art with the beginning of Leonid Brezhnev's reign at the end of the Khrushchev «thaw». One of the playwright's targets was one of social realism's main postulates – the «positive hero of our times». The hero of «Terrarium» is not even a human being, but a newt.
The next plays by V. Denisov are also «dedicated» to the Soviet period: «Paint the Roses in Red», «Guards on the Dam», «The Clown», «The Stray Streetcar»; the play «Skiers» is dedicated to the Perestroika period. Several generations of Russian intelligentsia of the second half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century became the protagonists of the plays «When the Saints Go Marching In», «Invited to the Feast», «See You Later, Alligator», «Heller in Pink Tights», «Christmas Eve» and others.
In 1987 Victor Denisov's debut as a playwright took place on the Moscow stage. It was the third year of Perestroika – the theater was in need of a new theatrical language. The Moscow New Drama Theater commissioned the staging of the American play «All in the Garden» (V. Denisov was supposed to provide its new translation). Yet the director Petr Stein, invited from the Lenin Komsomol Moscow Theater, had decided to make the stage adaptation of the play by Giles Cooper and Edward Albee in the spirit of the recent changes in Russia. And so V. Denisov's sharp and loud «The Garden Feast» was born – a tragical farce on the ruinous power of money that pushes people to lechery and crime.
The Chief Administration of Culture had shut the performance down, claiming it defamed the moral principles of the Soviet man. Luckily, many influential cultural figures have stood up for the performance: the critics Boris Lyubimov, Mikhail Shvydkoi, the poet and journalist of the Moscow Komsomol newspaper Alexander Aronov, the actress Natalia Varley, the artists of the Lenin Komsomol Moscow Theater – Oleg Yankovsky, Alexander Abdulov, Irina Alferova, and its artistic director Mark Zakharov. «The Garden Party» was resurrected and performed on the stage of the New Dramatic Moscow Theater until 1989, enjoying full houses in every performance.
In 1989 V. Denisov wrote the shortest Russian play ever – «Primum Agere» («Act!») – slightly more than half a page of text – a «happening» scenario on the unpredictable paths of Russia's possible development. This play entered V. Denisov's first collection of original plays «Six Specters of Lenin on a Piano», published in 1998. Five years earlier, in 1993, the play «Six Specters of Lenin on a Piano», dedicated to Russia's tragic fate in the 20th century, was staged at the «Laboratory» Drama Theater (Moscow) by its artistic director Andrey Rossinsky. The known theater critic John Freedman has commented upon the apparent paradoxes of the play: «The trick is that no one hits too hard on the obvious metaphors of Lenin-as-insect or the intellectual as his own worst enemy… And if there is a message to be gleaned from it all, it's one of reconciliation. As if author Denisov were saying, «Hey, my heritage may be baffling. But it's mine. All of it!» (A Bold, New Playwright Tackles Dalí, Lenin. By John Freedman. The Moscow Times, Thursday, 16 September 1993). «Six Specters…» is the first of V. Denisov's dramatic trilogy «20th Century Tyrants». The second play of the trilogy – «Scared as of Bin Laden» – touches upon international terrorism – the disease of the 21st century. The third – «Shall We Resurrect Karabas?» – examines the relationship of tyrant and victim.
In 1996 the prominent Russian director Roman Viktiuk proposed to Denisov to create a Russian scenic version of Billy Wilder's cult American movie Sunset Boulevard. The premiere of Victor Denisov's melodrama «Sunset Boulevard» took place at the Russian Theater of Estonia (Tallinn) in 1998. The part of the silent cinema star Norma Desmond was played by the Soviet and Ukrainian stage and film actress Ada Rogovtseva. The performance has toured in the Baltic Countries, Russia, Ukraine, Israel and USA.
The craft of playwriting combined with academic education makes Denisov's translations of plays easily «speakable», not requiring a scenic adaptation. V. Denisov was the first in Russia to translate Tennessee Williams' «Camino Real», «Period of Adjustment», «The Lady of Larkspur Lotion»; Harold Pinter's «The Lover»,«The Homecoming»; Arthur Miller's «Creation of the World and Other Business», Edward Albee's «American Dream».
Performances based on V. Denisov's plays and translations have featured such actors as Liya Akhedzhakovа, Victor Gvozditsky, Vyacheslav Grishechkin, Alexander Dzyuba, Valery Zadonsky, Alexander Ivashkevich, Kirill Kozakov, Sergey Makovetsky, Boris Nevzorov, Andrey Nevraev, Lyubov Novak, Lyudmila Odiyankova, Evgeny Paperny, Dmitry Pisarenko, Alexander Rezalin, Evgeniya Simonova, Vladimir Shevyakov and other known Russian stage and film actors.
In November 2011 the oldest artist of the famed Russian stage, a «Vakhtangovian» Vladimir Etush performed the role of Gregory Solomon in an excerpt of Arthur Miller's «The Price» (translated by V. Denisov) in a jubilee performance dedicated to the 90th anniversary of the Vakhtangov Theater (artistic director – Rimas Tuminas).
From 1974 to 2001 Denisov wrote around 500 articles on the issues of contemporary theater, drama, literature and art. He was published in the «Contemporary Drama» almanac, the magazines «Theatrical Life», «Contemporary Fiction Abroad», «Social Sciences Abroad», in the «Prompter» foreign drama magazine, the biweeklies «Screen and Stage», «Arguments and Facts», in the «Public Thought Abroad» book review, in the «Independent Newspaper», in the newspapers «Evening Moscow», «The Evening Club», «The Moscow Pravda» («The Moscow Truth»), «The Theatrical Messenger», and in the theatrical newspaper «Doctor Chekhov» and «Little Madame» («Sudarushka»).
Singularities of Dramatic Work
«I'm quite far away from staging my entire life – that would be too conceited. But practically everything that I've written did take place in reality; plus imagination, of course, if not that – I would be a realist – and that's not my thing at all.» (V. Denisov «The Playwright's Address to the Audience». The theater programme of the serious comedy «See you Later, Alligator» in the M.Rudomino Library for Foreign Literature, 2009, Moscow.)
Denisov is known for experimenting with form. He works on the verge of several genres, widely utilizing the metaphor. The foundation of a Victor Denisov play is an original idea, an entertaining plot and the unpredictability of denouement. Denisov attributes much importance to the role of music in a dramatic performance. Laughter is oftentimes one of the protagonists in many of his plays.
«Denisov can write clever dialogue and has a nice flair for situation and characterization. That's no mean feat». (From: Moscow Performances. The New Russian Theater 1991–1996 (page 57). By John Freedman. Harwood Academic Publishers, 1997.
Denisov considers Nikolay Gogol, Mikhail Saltykov-Schedrin and Evgeny Shvartz to be his playwriting teachers. He has also learned the professional craft from Edward Albee and Eugène Ionesco.
Participation in Festivals
The 1st International Festival of Young Drama «Lyubimovka-92» (When the Saints Go Marching In), The 1st International Drama Festival of the Alexander S.Onassis Public Benefit Foundation «Athens-2002» (Her Majesty's Diamonds).
Academic Work
The Philosophical Quest of Jerome David Salinger. (The first publication of the student Victor Denisov). Abstracts of Presentations by Young Academics at an MGU Academic Conference. Moscow: MGU Publishing House,1968.
PhD Thesis. «Romantic Foundations of T. Williams' Method. (The Singularity of Conflict in the Playwright's Works)». Moscow, 1982.
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