ANDREW VISNEVSKI (VISNEVSKY)
Theatre Director

Directing a new play for last year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival as part of an MA dissertation had left me with a number of questions and I felt the need to observe a more experienced director at work. I contacted Andrew Visnevski, director of the Cherub Company, whose work I have been closely following over the past years, admiring him as a director who obliterates distinctions between visual, physical and language based theatre. Andrew’s productions are always astounding in the complexity and haunting strangeness of the world they create, as well as in their technical perfection. I was eager to learn how Andrew managed to create such compelling theatre.

During the six months I spent with Andrew on his production of Bertolt Brecht’s The Life of Edward The Second of England, as part of the DGGB’s Observer Scheme, I was very surprised to witness how a director whose productions are always a testimony to a most imaginative mind worked extremely intimately with the text. This always remained the basis and premise for all our work. Andrew reads and understands a text in all its complexities, getting underneath its skin, deconstructing it layer by layer, revealing its full richness, purpose and meaning. Images, metaphors, biblical, mythological and classical references are all identified and made sense of within the context of the play. This work was always practical and never academic. Once Andrew has dissected the text, his greatest skill lies in being able to translate it into the language and grammar of the theatre, juxtaposing the verbal imagery of language with the verbal imagery of the stage in blocking, movement, design, costume, make-up, lighting and sound. Taking the text literally and seriously, Andrew arrives at something that is far from literary. Specific and detailed work on the text became a solid basis and reference point for all subsequent work.

Most importantly, Andrew has shown me a methodology which is centred on uncompromising hard work that is always focused on the relationship between the stage and the auditorium. Never did we digress into endless discussions about ‘character’. Our only concern was with the stage and its representations for the sake of the audience.

Andrew has provided me with invaluable experience and practical education. His enormous generosity and kindness have restored my faith and confidence so that I can now feel more positive than ever about directing.

Martin Oelbermann