The Broad Stage is presenting the U.S. Premiere of In Paris. Based on a story by Nobel Prize-winner Ivan Bunin, the show had its world-premiere in Helsinki, Finland in August 2011.
Set in 1930s Paris, it is a love story as well as a meditation on loneliness and loss. It stars two Russian born actors: ballet legend Mikhail Baryshnikov and avant-garde artist Anna Sinyakina, a leading actress in the Laboratory of director Dmitry Krymov.
Though world famous for his ballet dancing, Baryshnikov has also had a long parallel career as an actor, earning a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for his 1977 role in The Turning Point. In 1989, he appeared on Broadway in an adaptation of Kafka’s Metamorphosis, and more recently, a self-absorbed Russian artist in the popular HBO series Sex and the City. In the play, Baryshnikov gets to speak Russian onstage for the first time in his career.
Baryshnikov’s father was a lieutenant colonel and Baryshnikov says he drew inspiration for his In Paris character from unhappy memories of his father. “He was not a very pleasant man,” he said. “I did not have the happiest of childhoods. His mannerisms, his military habits, I put them in my interpretation.” (NY Times)
Having invested $250,000 in the project and solicited another $250,000 from a close Russian friend in New York, Baryshnikov is also the producer of the play. “I did this out of fun,” he laughs, “I’ll never get my money back.”
As producer though, he is careful to defer to and give artistic space to his creative director, when differences arise. He readily admits that he himself would have performed some scenes differently. “The director is not a sentimentalist,” he said. “He asked us to try not to get too emotional. I myself didn’t agree with many of his choices. But I am not entitled to raise my objections. It’s the same with a choreographer. If you commit, you should be a good foot soldier. This is not the place to be a general.” (NY Times)
Baryshnikov defected from the Soviet Union in 1974 to explore the wider creative possibilities offered in the West. The play is in French and Russian with English supertitles and running time is an hour and twenty minutes with no intermission. The play runs from April 11 through April 21.
For more information, visit www.thebroadstage.com or call 310-434-3412.