Soviet Theater Group Hits Money Snag : Leningrad Unit’s Broadway Appearance Faces Capitalistic Problem

One daring Soviet theater group poised to play on Broadway has discovered a strong link between itself and American theaters everywhere: lack of money.

The Leningrad Maly Dramatic Theatre has been scheduled for a year to bring its acclaimed epic production of “Brothers and Sisters” to the Belasco Theater on Thursday as part of the First New York International Festival of the Arts. But its New York producer is $125,000 short of the $450,000 necessary to run the production through July 2.

The Soviets are stunned.

“It’s very difficult for me to imagine that the richest country in the world cannot find the missing sum,” said Mikhail Stronin, the company’s dramaturgist, commenting in New York where he and artistic director Lev Dodin have spent the last two days frantically seeking a way to keep the production on schedule. Dodin, 44, speaks no English, so Stronin, 54, whose English is excellent, does most of the speaking.

The seven-hour play, featuring 35 actors--which the company usually shows over two nights--is based on a trilogy by 20th-Century Russian writer Fyodor Abramov. It has won prizes in the Soviet Union, where it was first shown in 1985.

Exultant after successful tours in Great Britain and Toronto’s Harborfront Festival, the company is crushed that the U.S. tour may be called off. Stronin described Dodin as “shocked” and “angered.”

“It’s very frustrating and very damaging for cultural relations,” Stronin said. “If this enterprise is disrupted, well, who knows when again it will be possible to start something new. Who will trust and believe that something of the same kind will not happen again.”

But businessman Martin Segal, the founder and director of the festival, bristles at talk like this--which Dodin and Stronin have definitely conveyed to him.

“I thought it was rather presumptuous of the director of the company to tell me this morning in my office that he thought this was a quote international incident which he said he thought could seriously affect the summit conference,” said Segal with a guffaw. “Can you believe it?”

Segal and his board invited about 150 groups in theater, music, art, dance, television and film to participate in the festival, which runs from June 11 through July 11. The festival, which has no government support, according to Segal, has taken the 20th Century as its theme.

And though the festival has a privately raised pool of $4.5 million to be distributed in varying amounts to participating groups, it is the responsibility of each artistic organization to get its own producer and financing. Segal said the festival gave the Maly Dramatic Theatre $150,000--the largest grant to any theater troupe in the festival.

“We’re disappointed,” Segal said, “but anyone who knows anything about the theater world knows that there’s nothing unusual about something not appearing because there isn’t enough money. The idea that this is an international incident is preposterous. We’re not magicians. We can’t create money where there is none.”

Stronin said, “Figuratively (Segal) says he gives an umbrella for the festival. I don’t see what’s the use of the umbrella if it has lots of holes in it.”

The Maly troupe’s New York theatrical producer, Ken Marsolais, said the money just wasn’t there. “I don’t know what happened,” Marsolais said. “I think the (October stock market) crash hurt.”

Marsolais said he even had problems raising $750,000 for a commercial venture to produce two O’Neill plays, featuring Jason Robards and Colleen Dewhurst, that will debut during the festival and continue in a regular run in New York. The Soviet group’s production is completely nonprofit.

Meanwhile, Marsolais is hoping all this publicity (“We’re going to try to give these stories a chance to work,” he said) will help him find the necessary $125,000.

More than 50 people in the Leningrad Maly Dramatic Theatre have visas waiting in the United States. Marsolais said he was obligated to call the State Department and, essentially, say that their visas may have to be canceled.

“We don’t want them coming into the country if they don’t have a production,” Marsolais said. “We have to do it officially through our government and their government to make sure that they don’t come. Otherwise there’s a contract, and they could come. If they get here, then I have to pay them.”