The Samovar and the Steam Train: An Interview with Albert Filozov

During the Soviet era, there was very limited contact between the rich training traditions of Russia and the UK. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, mutual exchange became easier. Bella Merlin, for example, has documented her difficult but inspiring year at the State Institute of Cinematography (VGIK). Merlin’s teachers at VGIK influenced a number of other English-speaking practitioners at a series of summer schools in Birmingham in the mid-1990s. These schools were known as the ‘Russian School of Acting’. The senior RSA teacher was Albert Filozov, the celebrated actor and People’s Artist of Russia, who died in April 2016. Steeped in the Russian tradition, Filozov trained at the Moscow Art Theatre under Kedrov, and was strongly influenced by Maria Knebel. During the first RSA, Filozov was interviewed by three participants, Asher Levin, David Jackson and John Albasiny. An edited reconstruction of the discussion is published here in ‘Sources’ for the first time. The introduction summarises Filozov’s achievements and contextualises three questions he considers which are of particular interest to performance training: what is the difference between life and stage emotion, what is the relationship between emotion and action and is it possible to teach acting at all?