Ernst Zorin. Theatre of on one actor
     

  On January 17th at Yelena Kimelblat’ house in New Jersey (the picturesque art gallery of the hostess) the actor Ernst Zorin presented his one-man show. It was really brilliant!The event left a long lasting impression on me. As if by magic of an unknown time machine, I was able to go back 30 years to that other Moscow...  Moscow of theatre and art, when each time while you visit a theatre, whether it was Taganka Theatre, or Sovremennik Theatre (Contemporary) , The Moscow Art Theatre (MHAT) or The Vakhtangov Theater, it became an important event of my life, and after such performances, I always felt as one of the participants of the magnificent and realistic (and at the same time fantastic) representations, where I was struck with unusual play of actors and the masterful director's ideas for the stage settings.
And after this recent performance by Ernst Zorin, again I was involved in an extraordinary magical show performed by one actor, with his talent to imitate or transform into any character, and in his incredible ability to tell the story and show everything so it feels like reality, which made you believe that everything he was showing to us really does exist.
     Here Mr. Zorin performs by reading a very well-known poem by A.S. Pushkin "Count Nulin". And by listening, we become the participants of this story, and feel both the boredom of the village life, and all entourage of provincial life with its own drama and intrigues. We are even able to feel an actual scratch of sledge when hunters leave their houses, and the bell ring of carriages that are passing by. Still under impression, once I got home, I opened the book and read this poem from the beginning. The poem "Count Nulin" was still wonderful with lovely words and great syllables, but it did not have such an amazing feel of reality. There was the talent and skill of Ernst Zorin that gave this poem new colors, filling it with the undiscovered content and meaning. It seemed like he became a coauthor of A.Pushkin
     And the other pieces he read perfectly as well. He read famous stories such as A.Chekhov's "Death of the official", and M. Gorky’s and V. Voynovich's satirical stories. And at the very end of the performance he perfectly imitated the actor N. Plotnikov who was very famous back at the time. I remember this actor very well from his movies and performances at the Vakhtangov theater, and I can confirm that Zorin's warm and caring parody was very close to the original. As for Ernst Zorin's participation in performances of theater "Vakhtangov", I deeply regret that I cannot recall his performances. Although, in my archives of the theatre's playbills (including the famous “La Turandotte“ by Carlo Gozzi), I did find Zorin's name in the list of the actors. He was playing his roles together with legendary actors such as J.Borisova, Y.Yakovlev, M.Ulianov, and together with these actors he created an absolutely unique ensemble, for which this theatre founded by Yevgeny Vakhtangov was very well known and loved. With these notes, I would like to thank the great actor Ernst Zorin who by his performance gave such a joy and pleasure to all of his audience. With his performance we met the real art.

  Translated by Lina Donskaya