Oksana Mysina Theatrical Brotherhood: Oksana Mysina

Oksana Mysina

Oksana MYSINA is one of the most accomplished and respected actresses in Russia. The French critic Michel Cournot simply called her a “great Russian actress.“ The American director and producer Melanie Joseph has called her “one of the greatest actresses of our time.“ The actor and director Oleg Menshikov said Oksana is “one of the few dramatic actresses today who commands a true tragic temperament,“ adding, “I never believed the [acting] profession could so completely consume a person, but with Oksana I now see it can.” With an obvious sense of veneration, the actor Alexander Kalyagin has said this of her: „With delight and unconcealed envy her contemporaries must note her incomprehensible capacity for work, her penchant for being absolutely unpredictable and her proclivity for taking professional risks that borders on recklessness and lunacy.” Writing of Oksana?s „exceptional talent, energy, work ethic and optimism,” the playwright Nadezhda Ptushkina adds, „Oksana Mysina for me is an enigma.”

Mysina began her professional career in 1988 at the Spartacus Square Theater. Her performance there of the title role in Lyudmila Razumovskaya's “Dear Yelena Sergeyevna” brought about her first international recognition. An American tour in 1990 (36 shows at the Victory Gardens Theater in Chicago and 6 shows at California State University at Dominguez Hills near Los Angeles) garnered rave reviews in these cities' main newspapers. Hedy Weiss in the Chicago Sun-Times wrote that Mysina delivered an “astonishing performance that is half silk and half indestructible steel.”

Since 1994 Mysina has worked independently and has performed for many of Russia's finest and most popular directors. These shows include Roman Kozak's production of Iris Murdoch's “The Black Prince” (Pushkin Theater, 2002) and Nikolai Yevreinov's “The Main Thing” (Moscow Art Theater, 1999); Oleg Menshikov's production of Maxim Kurochkin's “Kitchen” (814 Theatrical Association, 2000) and Vladimir Mirzoyev's production of Alexei Kazantsev's “That, This Other World” (Stanislavsky Theater, 1997). In the 2005-2006 season she played the Queen in Yury Urnov's production of “The King of Sins and the Queen of Fears,“ an adaptation of Witold Gombrowicz's „Iwonna, Princess of Burgundia.” In November 2006 she opened in the lead role of Alexander Chugunov's mystical drama “Libido“ under the direction of Alexander Ogaryov, a former student of Anatoly Vasilyev. Oksana began performing the lead role of Jean in Yury Urnov's production of Sarah Ruhl's Broadway hit "Dead Man's Cell Phone" in December 2008.

Mysina's most famous work in Russia and abroad has been in Kama Ginkas's now legendary production of “K. I. from 'Crime',” a play written by Daniil Gink and based on the character of Katerina Ivanovna from Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel „Crime and Punishment.” Since opening in 1994, this show (which still runs in repertory at Moscow's Young Spectator, or New Generation, Theater) has been performed over 300 times in 15 countries. “K. I. from 'Crime'” performed at Bard College's Fisher Center for the Performing Arts in New York in August 2003. In January 2005, it ran for three weeks on Off-Broadway in a production of the Foundry Theater and was a genuine success de scandal. A three-week tour in the fall of 2006 to three cities in Brazil was triumphant, playing to standing-room-only crowds and garnering praise as “sensational,“ “masterful” and „stupendous.” Gink's play, with production photos, is published in English in TheatreForum No. 23 (2003), pp. 89-99.

Mysina's relationship with the director Boris Lvov-Anokhin (1927-2000) holds a special place in her biography. She performed leads in this classic director's last four productions: Michael Redgrave's “The Aspern Papers” based on the novella by Henry James (1993), Ferdinand Bruckner's “A Heroic Comedy” (1995), Eugene Scribe and Ernest Legouve's “The Novellas of Margaret of Navarre” (1996) and Alexander Ostrovsky's “Moscow Stories About Love and Marriage” (1999). She performed on tour with this latter show in Marseilles, France, in 2001.

Mysina debuted as a theater director with her production of Viktor Korkiya's “Don Quixote and Sancho Panza on the Island of Taganrog” on September 19, 2001. This show, whose production title is “Quixote and Sancho“ and in which she performs the role of Sancho Panza, marked the debut of her own theater, the Oksana Mysina Theatrical Brotherhood. She followed that production with Korkiya?s „Ariston,” a modern rendition of the Oedipus myth, also for the Oksana Mysina Theatrical Brotherhood. It premiered April 7, 2004.

Oksana has been one of the most stalwart supporters of contemporary Russian playwrights. Her performances in plays by Razumovskaya, Kazantsev, Kurochkin, Korkiya and others have helped define these writers' reputations. In 2006 Oksana was chosen to work with the Swedish director Mathias Lafolie on a play-reading project that brought new Swedish writing to Russia.

Mysina has played numerous memorable roles in film and television. For her performance in Vadim Abdrashitov's “Play for a Passenger” (1995) she received a Golden Ram award for best debut. For her performance in Yelena Tsyplakova's “Family Secrets” (2001), a 22-part TV mini-series, she received a Spolokhi award for best actress at the 3rd festival of television movies in Arkhangelsk. Her performance in “The Other Mask“ episode of the original “Kamenskaya” TV mini-series is recognized as a small masterpiece. Her performance as the Empress Marya Fyodorovna Vitaly Melnikov's „Poor, Poor Pavel” (2003), a cinematic biography about Pavel I, has been recognized for excellence on several fronts. It brought her awards at the 14th annual Vera Kholodnaya Women of Film festival in Moscow, the Vivat, Russian Cinema festival in St. Petersburg, and the Artek International Children?s Film Festival in the Crimea, all in 2004. For this role, she was nominated for a Nika award (generally considered the Russian Oscar) in the Best Supporting Actress category. In Oleg Babitsky and Yury Goldin's television movie of Mikhail Bulgakov's “Theatrical Novel” (fall 2003), she offered a tartly eccentric interpretation of Polixena. Her performance as Elzbieta in Alexei Zernov?s ironic TV mini-series “All or Nothing” was first aired in March/April 2004. Mysina performed the lead in Arkady Sirenko's made-for TV movie “Wilting-Failing,” based on stories by Vasily Shukshin (2004). She performed in Andrei Eshpai's TV version of Anatoly Rybakov's novel “The Children of the Arbat” (2004) and in Yury Kara's “A Star of the Age” (2005) in which she played the legendary Russian actress Serafima Birman. For Eldar Ryazanov she played the tragicomic role Hans Christian Andersen?s mother Anna-Maria in Ryazanov's film “Andersen” (2007). She played pure eccentric comedy in Nonna Agadzhanova's TV miniseries “Bloody Mary” (2007).

Mysina is the frontwoman and lead singer of her own rock band Oxy Rocks. She plays the violin and writes the lyrics to the band's songs. Oxy Rocks regularly performs in various Moscow venues and clubs and performs on tours throughout Russia and other countries of the CIS.