"Very stylish, very beautifully shot, and the three actors were very pleasing." Marcinovich on Andrei Savchenko's "Dziady"

Nastassia Pankratava and I watched the film-play "Dziady (Forefathers' Eve)," directed by Andrei Savchenko, based on Adam Mickiewicz's poem of the same name.

Very stylish and beautifully shot, excellent cinematography (Ryncyk Vystarobski). Erik Arlou-Shymkus's music was inspiring. And the three actors were very pleasing — when you watch scenes with them (the best in "Dziady"), you wonder how interesting a full screen adaptation of the poem with their participation could be.

This is Yura Dzyvakou — in fact, it's an extremely rare case when a cool director is also a talented actor. In the early 2010s, I saw him in the tragicomedy "Hamlet," staged by Ihar Kazakou at the Mogilev Puppet Theater. Then there was a brief but fruitful collaboration with Svabodny (Free Theater). And now, the role of a master who didn't help people and is now suffering — Yura is convincing everywhere.

This is Sviatlana Tsikhina — her role (she embodies an mature woman who has seen a lot) convinces one of the breadth of her potential. Frankly, outside the Puppet Theater, where she performed for years, I only saw her in the play "M," staged in the late 2010s. She can and should perform in drama theater productions — one hopes a director will recognize that.

And this is Sviatlana Anikey. To be honest, I'm generally allergic to all these bombastic descriptions: great, brilliant, etc. They are clearly overused, and people have long stopped believing them. But this is a case where, as they say, you need to dot your "i"s and cross your "t"s. My wife and I both agree: Anikey is a great Belarusian actress, and no one will convince me otherwise. For such a description, one "trifle" is needed: to be different in every role. Sviatlana always achieves this whenever I see her on stage.

In the early 2010s, "Translations" was staged at Kupalauski (National Academic Theater). And just the other day, fragments of that performance were shown in Ireland. I saw a video recorded by my wife. It featured Anikey's monologue — and those were moments of absolute theatrical happiness and pure theatrical bliss. I wished her monologue (or rather, attempts at a monologue, because the heroine cannot say a single word in a foreign language) would last forever.

And I had the same feeling when I watched her fragments from "Dziady." To observe her facial expressions, her intonations, how she experiences and lives through certain events even in silence — it's pure pleasure.

In her time, critic Tatsiana Arlova released the book "Alien" (or "The Alien Woman"), dedicated to Bella Masumyan, the prima donna of the Gorky Theater. Naturally, Tatsiana Dzmitryeuna had her own logic for such a title. And yet Masumyan — at least externally — felt quite comfortable in the Gorky repertoire. That's why I would actually apply the designation "alien" to Anikey.

Productions were not staged for her, the repertoire was not built around her, and directors who were leaders in the theatrical process in the 2010s (Ihar Kazakou, Aliaksandr Yanushkevich, Yauhen Karniag, even Dzyvakou himself) did not work with her — to the extent that she deserves.

I don't know how Sviatlana feels about this — we were never friends or close acquaintances and only spoke two, maybe three times. But I will say that this is not Anikey's problem; it is a problem of Belarusian theater, which loses a lot by ignoring the strongest actress of its generation.

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