{"id":35685,"date":"2024-10-13T23:19:30","date_gmt":"2024-10-13T22:19:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/?p=35685"},"modified":"2026-01-14T04:25:53","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T04:25:53","slug":"fiery-charon-maxim-sukhanov-plays-the-crematorium-director","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/en\/fiery-charon-maxim-sukhanov-plays-the-crematorium-director\/","title":{"rendered":"Fiery Charon. Maxim Sukhanov plays the crematorium director"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eerie, inhuman, terrifying, guttural sounds fill the room, evoking horror scenes of zombies in abandoned morgues. Combined with the glamorous audience, this creates a surreal atmosphere\u2014friendly smiles mixed with this ominous noise.<\/span><\/p>\n

The stage is separated from the audience by a fire curtain labeled “safety curtain,” which itself becomes part of the performance: it divides the world of the living from the dead, life from fire. Eventually, it rises, though delayed by more than 20 minutes.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

On stage is a signature screen\u2014often used by director Maxim Didenko in his productions\u2014and four actors: two NKVD investigators, the protagonist, and his beloved woman.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Watching Maxim Sukhanov\u2019s performance, it\u2019s hard to resist using words like \u201cgreat.\u201d But why should we resist? Sukhanov portrays Pyotr Nesterenko, a nobleman, a military officer, an emigrant, and in his later years, the director of Moscow’s first crematorium at Donskoy Cemetery.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Cremulator<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Beside him constantly moves the small, delicate figure of Vera, the great love of Nesterenko\u2019s life, played by Russian-speaking actress Yan Ge of Chinese descent. She moves in a jerky rhythm, acting out everyday moments of parting one moment and then suddenly singing with a voice both terrifying and beautiful, like molten glass. Her accent is like the sound of candy rattling in a tin box. Her character speaks about how she won\u2019t become a star in Paris due to her accent\u2014yet the actress saying this clearly knows she\u2019s lying. Is this a Brechtian alienation effect, a double meaning, a trick?<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The direction here is sharp, cold, and calculated like an architectural drawing. But again and again, it\u2019s shaken from within by this huge man\u2014not fat, but powerful, like a mountain. He moves slowly, looks slowly, even his silences are significant and frightening. Sukhanov as Nesterenko sits amidst a set filled with boxes, lids, red and black surfaces\u2014this fiery Charon surrounded by coffins that transform into windows, prison cell doors, or dressing room corners in an endless array of metamorphoses.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Cremulator<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

At first, it seems he\u2019s in his domain, the king of this dark valley, but no. The play is an interrogation. Pyotr Ilyich Nesterenko is being interrogated by two NKVD officers, sleek and lean, their black breeches fitting their thin legs too perfectly. They become increasingly savage, hissing \u201cShow us!\u201d (A theatrical word suddenly takes on a sinister meaning in the play\u2014\u201ctestify against yourself\u201d).<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

One investigator (Frol Podlesny) constantly wields a camera, focusing it on Nesterenko, while the other conducts the interrogation with whip-like fingers. But what\u2019s going on here? This enormous man could crush them with a flick of his finger or a sigh, yet for some reason, he endures their abuse and beatings.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The play presents cruelty in close-up (broadcasted from the camera to the screen) so the audience can\u2019t miss the horror of the torture. The protagonist is kicked, a bucket is put on his head, he’s hit with the bucket, and strangled against its rim. And yet he endures…<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The production is filled to the brim with macabre details of funeral life, evoking scenes from Bulgakov\u2019s novel where a young man goes to a hospital morgue to retrieve the body of a slain commander, examining the gruesome place with horrified fascination. Yet Sukhanov\u2019s titanic effort prevents the play from becoming merely a spectacle of horror\u2014he doesn\u2019t emphasize the nightmare but rather downplays it, normalizes it, and the result is an even more powerful effect.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Cremulator<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But it\u2019s not Nesterenko\u2019s work, his love drama, or even the savage face of the regime that takes center stage here. Sukhanov wears this play like his white shirt, in which he performs, and at times the performance feels like it can barely contain him. Eventually, it falls apart, leaving behind the ancient mystery of dying.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

At times, it seems that Nesterenko is using the interrogators like psychoanalysts, reflecting on and analyzing his life as if it\u2019s already over. And indeed, he recounts his life as if it\u2019s finished. Yes, you understood correctly.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Suddenly, he begins to sing in a low, deep overtone voice, resembling the Tibetan Buddhist tradition of Dzok\u00e9, where darkness, the roar of pure mountain streams, and the voices of wrathful deities resound.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the delicate Vera transforms into Garuda, the mythical bird, with her beautiful face and huge, terrifying wings. Garuda, by the way, is the firebird in one of the Tibetan religions.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s as if everything is happening not in reality but in the Tibetan Bardo, through which Nesterenko’s soul travels in the four post-death realms toward its next rebirth. All these interrogators, women, old men, recruiters, executioners, and other birds and people in military coats\u2014they don\u2019t exist in reality\u2026 oh, so that\u2019s what it is!<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

But then, suddenly, the lights in the auditorium blaze. Instead of an intermission, actor Igor Titov (who plays the interrogator, not an emanation of a wrathful deity in the Bardo) starts talking to the audience about modernity. This unexpected moralizing interlude shatters the entire theory of the otherworldly. It\u2019s nearly impossible to resume the performance on the same note after a discussion of those who left and those who stayed, but Sukhanov\u2019s talent allows the audience to return\u2014albeit with a lost sense of rhythm, emotionally detached from what\u2019s happening. It\u2019s as if the reference to the present day breaks the colossal tragedy of dying that had been so painstakingly constructed. Do we really need direct parallels to draw comparisons?<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

But Sukhanov is a phenomenal actor, capable of any challenge. His precision in every intonation, every smirk, every movement of an eyebrow is astonishing. This play isn\u2019t about sympathy, empathy, or the horrors of repression\u2014it\u2019s a tribute to the genius of acting, where private life becomes a tragedy of planetary scale.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Dying Nesterenko represents a dying universe. But, as another poet said, \u201cI shall not die a whole, but in the tokened lyre my soul will outlive my flesh and won’t decay,\u201d and the final word is \u201clive.\u201d Shoot all you want. You won\u2019t succeed. He will live.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“The Cremulator,” a play directed by Maxim Didenko and written by Sasha Filippenko, has been brought to London. The lead role is played by Maxim Sukhanov, who portrays a real historical figure, the director of a crematorium during Stalin’s repressions. However, this is not a biopic but rather an artistic fantasy where the historical character serves as the starting point.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":91,"featured_media":35686,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[86],"tags":[],"type_post":[184],"column":[],"class_list":["post-35685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/91"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35685"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60024,"href":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35685\/revisions\/60024"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35685"},{"taxonomy":"type_post","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/type_post?post=35685"},{"taxonomy":"column","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/column?post=35685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}