Published on: 2026-10-19
Source: Moscow Government – Правительства Москвы –
An important disclaimer is at the bottom of this article.
At the theater “Hermitage” is going “Hamlet. The Path to the Father” — a play where Shakespeare’s text meets the memories of the theater’s artistic director Mikhail Levitin about his own father. 4.5 hours, a complete translation by Boris Pasternak, two Hamlets on stage — young and adult, and also a suitcase: each spectator leaves the hall with a luggage of new emotions and questions that will linger for a long time. “Mosbilet” attended the performance and talked with the director about why he decided to stage this particular play, while actor Andrey Pavlov, who plays the role of Laertes, explained how his character was created in the production.
Memory Ship
The play begins in darkness. A spotlight beam highlights a chair on which Hamlet (Vasily Korsunov) sits, holding a fiber suitcase in his hands. A boatman appears. And a child — young Hamlet (Alexey Soshin) — utters the key phrase: “To be or not to be.” The boy meets his adult self, and this narrative of the encounter will be preserved throughout the entire production.
Next, the familiar story turns into a conversation about what we lose and what we try to hold on to. The wooden plank stage set becomes the throne room, the royal chamber, and the deck of a ship gliding over an endless sea. The projection on the screen, the play of light, sound, and even splashes of water create the sensation that the viewer is standing on this shaky vessel alongside the characters. The gravediggers, tirelessly bailing water, are a grotesque but tragic image of the eternal struggle for life and resistance to oblivion.
“Dad is always with me”
The visual image of the drifting ship is not just scenography: there is a specific idea behind it. “This is a story of fathers and sons,” says Mikhail Levitin, and here the fact that the director brings out at the beginning of the performance is important. Shakespeare had a son, Hamnet, who died at age 11. At the end of the 16th century, the names Hamnet and Hamlet sounded the same. A few years after the death of his son, Shakespeare writes a play about a son who lost his father. For Mikhail Levitin, this is the starting point. Shakespeare endured the loss of his son and created “Hamlet.” Levitin keeps the memory of his father and stages “Hamlet.” One story of loss is reflected in another. In this mirror, the director sees his own experience: how important it is not to sever the connection with those who have left and how theater helps to maintain this connection.
“Dad is always with me,” shares Mikhail Levitin. “In my books — there are 28 of them — they are connected with my father. I love him and I think it wouldn’t hurt others to love their fathers too.”
This personal perspective becomes the main directorial decision. The play includes autobiographical interludes: the action freezes, Hamlet addresses the audience and introduces an episode from Mikhail Zakharovich’s childhood — the most emotional, captivating, and touching part of the play. “I wanted to talk with my father,” the director explains. “And it turned out that I wasn’t the only one who wanted that: everyone wants to talk to an older, close person, so ‘Hamlet. The Way to the Father’ was created.”
The conversation continues uninterrupted until the very end. The viewer finds themselves inside a very personal, deep dialogue and unconsciously begins to conduct their own. It feels as if you are no longer at a play, but at an intense session with a psychologist: they talk about other people, but you see yourself in them. And you are talking — with yourself, with memory, with those who are no longer here. At some point, you catch yourself thinking: this was the conversation you lacked, but one you yourself would hardly ever have started.
“I am a total realist”
The depth of meanings in the play is possible because the director himself lives in this state. Mikhail Levitin speaks about himself with utmost clarity: “I am a total realist. I believe that everyone is alive. For me, this is not a metaphor: I communicate with my notebook, where 90 percent of people have passed away. They are more real to me than those who remain. Therefore, I communicate with them, write about them, stage about them, think about them.”
This fidelity to the past is not a pose, but a way of being. “The future will manage without me. Let it think about me, and I will think about the past,” notes the director. In this attention to the past, there is a sense of reverence and respect: memory of history, of people, and of meanings. That is precisely why in Mikhail Levitin’s theater there are no stage tricks for effect. “There is only the heart. My heart. And the hearts of my actors, who are devoted to me,” he notes.
This dedication is measured in decades. “They have been working with me for 50 years. A long time. A very long time. I believe they stay with me because they find it interesting to work with a leader who represents some fundamental theme of life. What could such a theme be? Certainly, what is important to everyone: kindness, art, probably love. They share my choice of themes and my vision of life,” says Mikhail Levitin.
Thus, his theater becomes a space where the past is not an archive but a interlocutor, where memory is not a burden but a support. It is this philosophy that determines how the actors work on stage, how they exist in the performance, and how the audience becomes involved in their conversation.
A scene where everything is real
Vasily Korsunov in the role of the adult Hamlet plays a person in whom everyone recognizes themselves alone with an irreparable loss. He is not a hero from a portrait, but rather an antihero: constrained, gradually unfolding, and gaining strength not for revenge, but for creation. He compels empathy and thought, engages one in the course of the performance, and exposes the question of the connection between son and father in such a way that it ceases to be literary and becomes personal.
Equally poignant is Andrey Pavlov’s work as Laertes (Polonius’s son, Ophelia’s brother). The actor says that the journey to the character was long: “We read the play, then stood up and began rehearsing, and for a long time we couldn’t understand exactly what Shakespeare wanted to say in a particular scene. It’s no wonder we rehearsed for seven to nine months. Although even that isn’t enough to fully grasp what Shakespeare put into these lines.”
For Andrey Pavlov, “Hamlet. The Path to the Father” is not just a role: “I fell in love with the play because it showed that we are not working as actors and performing in the theatre in vain. The themes raised here, if they arise at all in everyday life, do so without such sharpness, without such intensity. And when you play such passions on stage, you think: if even one, two, or three audience members reflect what reflected in you, then it was not for nothing. It’s as if we are not just actors, but truly enlighteners.”
A separate matter is how the audience yields to this tension. Sometimes a spectator begins to empathize so strongly that they become involved in the performance: picking up lines, applauding, joining the dialogue. “After all, this is art,” emphasizes Andrey Pavlov. “And of course, it is not always necessary to show emotions so vividly. However, if the performance and the actors’ play resonated so much with the spectator—why not? We are human, and we all come to the theater for emotion. The theater was created, first of all, to be an educational place, and secondly, a place where a person receives what they cannot get in everyday life.”
When asked whether he endows his character with the feeling of a son towards a father, the actor replies: “Fortunately, my father is alive, and our relationship is far from what is depicted by Shakespeare. Therefore, I sought other emotional supports. I read a lot and analyzed various options.”
The key to the performance lies in this honesty. The actors do not pretend to feel; they find and reveal the feelings within themselves, they do not portray pain, but live through it. Therefore, the viewer ceases to be a mere observer and at some point becomes a participant in the conversation, and sometimes even its co-author.
Tickets for the performance can be purchased through the service “Mosbilet”.
What else to watch at the Hermitage Theatre
In addition to the performance “Hamlet. The Path to the Father,” several other premieres deserve special attention.
“Old Ladies” on the small stage — a production by Olga Levitina based on a story by Friedrich Gorenstein, a sad and funny play about love, duty, and the past, staged as part of the project “Theatre of Mikhail Levitin through the eyes of his students.” The leading roles are played by Irina Bogdanova and Kim Kosheva, tickets are available on the service “Mosbilet”.
The play “Who Is the Author of This Mess?” is a parade of miniatures and interludes based on the works of Nikolai Erdman, directed by Mikhail Levitin. Erdman is a playwright whose irony and precision in observing humans have not become outdated, and the parade format allows one to see him from the most unexpected sides. Tickets can be purchased through the service “Mosbilet”.
“Journey to the Crimson Island” is a utopia based on the play by Mikhail Bulgakov, directed by Mikhail Levitin. The performance continues the theater’s line where 20th-century classics sound modern and sharp, and the fantastic plot becomes a reason for a conversation about reality.
Tickets are in the service “Mosbilet”.
Looking for ideas on where to go in Moscow, and follow interesting events in the “Mosbilet” channels in messengers “Max” and “Telegram”.
Please note; This information is raw content obtained directly from the source of information. It is an accurate report of what the source claims and does not necessarily reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.