Anatoly Shulyev, 33, appointed chief director of the Vakhtangov Theatre

It has become known that Anatoly Shuliev, a graduate of the Shchukin School, has been appointed chief director of the Vakhtangov Theatre. Why is this news of interest?

First, the Vakhtangov is the richest and, to all intents and purposes, the foremost theatre in Russia. Second, for a long time it stood under the command of two of the greatest luminaries of the Russian stage, Rimas Tuminas and Yuri Butusov. Butusov was in his day lured away from Petersburg; it is held that Tuminas wished to prepare a successor for himself and, naturally, wanted the man to be his equal. The wager was placed precisely on Butusov, and the level of his mastery and the very highest recognition it commands are attested by his repeated laureateships: at the Golden Mask, the Golden Soffit, the Crystal Turandot and the Nail of the Season.

What, then, does the appointment to so weighty a post of a young director, aged 33 and as yet not so widely known, signify? That the Vakhtangov, for the time being, remains a director's theatre in the administrative sense, and will in all likelihood go on existing, on the whole, under the management of Krok. On the other hand, the theatre's director, Kirill Krok, had earlier declared his hope that the candidacy of the chief director would be put forward by the company itself and approved by a body such as an artistic council of key actors, which, as I understand it, has spent this past year vetting the principal decisions. One way or another, it is too early to speak of Anatoly Shuliev as a great director, whatever hopes he raised at the very outset.

Personally, I remember Shuliev from two productions: his pre-diploma piece of some ten years ago, Exit the King, which employed both Shchukin students and young Vakhtangov actors, and the not especially successful Don Juan at the Mayakovsky Theatre, which was dropped from the repertoire after a single season. But then, the esteemed and beloved Mindaugas Karbauskis once noticed Tolya Shuliev and took him on, which is also worth a great deal. Besides, Shuliev is after all a pupil of Tuminas, one of the brightest lads of his year. True, he is far younger, but thanks to his close ties with the Vakhtangov Theatre, with the school and with Rimas Vladimirovich, there is hope of continuity in creative method. All the more so as it is said that Tuminas approved the appointment.