Kheifets Leonid Efimovich - theater director and director (tried himself both as an actor and as a teacher), an active public figure, and also, since 1993, People's Artist of the Russian Federation. To this day, Leonid Kheifets is a professor at the Russian Academy of Theater Arts.
general information
Leonid Efimovich Kheifets will forever remain on the pages of Russian theater as an exceptionally talented stage director. His works are loved by all people: both the generation of the peak of his work - the generation of people of the seventies, and the current audience, which is already very difficult to surprise with anything. And yet Heifets succeeds brilliantly. His classic plays and plays remade in a new way allow theatergoers to find a dialogue with great writers, absorb their thoughts and understand them.
Childhood
Leonid began his life journey in a country related to Russia - in Belarus. In 1934, on May 4, in Minsk the future director was born. Not a single soul then suspected who an active little boy could grow up, like all children who loved to play war games and walk late. Even Leonid’s parents were not prepared for the fact that their son would turn his back on the path familiar to everyone and choose a creative path - difficult, thorny, but giving a lot of opportunities.
And so it happened in the future: instead of studying at the Belarusian Polytechnic Institute until the end, as his father wanted, Kheifets left this type of activity in the last courses to enter the desired institution.
Education by profession
Kheifets Leonid Efimovich submits documents to GITIS - a place where his directorial potential can be revealed, like nowhere else. Naturally, young Kheifets is studying at the directing department, and it is here that his first steps towards the theater begin.
The GITIS course, in principle, could not seem easy to someone, but Kheifets coped with his studies easily, obviously feeling like a fish in water on the first test shootings and assignments for young directors. At the end of the training, Leonid's teachers - A.D. Popov and M.O. Knebel - could rightfully be proud of their student. His thesis in 1963, "Highway to Ursa Major" made a great impression on the admissions office of the institute.
First steps in directing
After graduating from GITIS from “Highway to Ursa Major”, Leonid Efimovich Kheifets has already established himself as a novice director who is seriously suitable for his work. In the year of graduation, he was invited to the post of director at the Central Academic Theater of the Soviet Army (TsATSA). Gradually, gaining the authority of his students and colleagues, in 1988 Leonid became the main director of this theater.
During this time, Kheifets Leonid Efimovich staged such well-known paintings of that era as “The Death of John the Terrible” and “Uncle Vanya”. Moreover, both performances received positive reviews, and this is an excellent start for the beginning director.
Love and theaters
After success at TsATSA, Leonid Kheifets transferred to the Maly Theater, where his productions began to acquire dramatic atmosphere characteristic of the theatrical atmosphere. It was in this spirit that several performances were staged based on the works of famous classical writers. The most successful include the production of “The Fiesco Conspiracy in Genoa” by Friedrich Schiller, as well as the play “King Lear” - one of William Shakespeare’s reference works, which is often chosen now for stage production. In 1981, on the stage of the Maly Theater, Kheifets revived the tradition of staging Russian prose - that year he made his debut performance on the play by playwright Alexander Galin called Retro.
In 1982, Kheifets decided to try himself in a slightly different guise - as a filmmaker. The work of I. Goncharov “Cliff” claimed the role of film adaptation. And if everything was very clear with the male role of the main character, then the female images of the two sisters, Martha and Vera, were in doubt. The role of the first director was watched by a novice actress - Natalia Georgievna Gundareva became her.
This woman with her spontaneity and cheerfulness conquered the heart of Heifetz. After some time, they began to meet, and after finishing work on the film, they decided to live together, but there was nowhere. Kheifets Leonid Efimovich, whose family was one of the goals of life, dreamed of settling down, and therefore began to look for him and Natalia for an apartment. Finally, luck smiled at him, and a cozy apartment was found on Gorky Street, which was prestigious at that time. At first, the couple turned out wonderfully: Natalia worked in the theater to them. V. Mayakovsky, and Kheifets staged performances in his theater. Since Leonid was a very sociable person, people always gathered in his house - friends, colleagues, actors, troupe and many others. This is where the discord between the spouses began.
Kheifets Leonid Efimovich, whose wife was already so tired on endless shootings, threw his wife home work, and in those crumbs of free time of rest that fell to her lot, Natalia was forced to engage in everyday life. He brought large companies, from which the actress very quickly got tired. The last straw was the director’s good nature, with which he once again left some of his friends to spend the night. Gundareva Natalya Georgievna failed to come to terms with this - she asked her husband for a divorce. For Heifetz, the divorce was painful, however, plunging into work, he suffered a little less. The man decided that his stage and the performances that he puts on her would be his best wife. So Kheifets Leonid Efimovich, whose personal life was derailed due to eternal employment, made his choice, preferring to surrender to art without a trace.
With the arrival of Heifetz, the theater seemed to perk up: now more and more plays by Russian writers were staged, the troupe gladly played complex plots, and all the other directors woke up from their sleep and gradually began to prepare new productions for the next theater season.
Current activity
In 1988, Leonid Kheifets continued to search for a theater for his soul and opted for the V. Mayakovsky Moscow Academic Theater (MATI). And to this day, the director works in this Melpomene temple, devoting all his strength to preparing a worthy shift - now Leonid Kheifets is teaching young directors in the art of production. Moreover, this teaching experience is not the first for the director - in the 80s, Leonid Efimovich taught at the Higher Theater School. M.S.Schepkina, and nowadays, besides MATI, Kheifets is engaged in pedagogy at the Russian Academy of Theater Arts.
His directorial work left an indelible mark on the activities of many theaters in Russia, so that the name of this man, even after his death, will still sound there - behind his native theater backstage.