Agrippina Steklova on her role in ‘The Knight of the Burning Pestle’

Director Declan Donnellan and designer Nick Ormerod collaborate with Moscow’s Pushkin Theatre on Francis Beaumont’s subversive play The Knight of the Burning Pestle, a play within a play. It will run from 5th to 8th Jun 2019 at the Barbican Theatre.

This breathtaking outrageous dark comedy is both hilarious and terrifying in its relevance to a post-expert world where everyone can be famous and anyone can write the story.

The London Merchant, a play about two dysfunctional families begins. Suddenly, from the audience, a grocer and his wife clamber onto the stage, explaining to the astonished actors that while they quite like the play, it could be better and more exciting. Apparently, singing, dancing, an exotic foreign location and the appearance of a knight are the missing ingredients. Luckily, their apprentice Rafe is just the man for the job.

The Artiscape spoke to Agrippina Steklova about her role in the play. Born on February 15, 1973, in Krasnodar, Russian SFSR, USSR as Agrippina Vladimirovna Steklov, she is an actress, known for Insight (2015), Roads to Koktebel (2003) and The Geographer Drank His Globe Away (2013).

What attracted Steklova to the script?

Steklova: I find the play extraordinary as I don’t know any other play where the main characters would be members of the audience who dare to come on stage and interfere with the action. They try to take control and this interference, which is key to the entire play, is what makes this play unique.

What is Steklova most looking forward to in doing the play?

Steklova: The scariest, most difficult and at the same time most exciting moment of the show for me is the moment when you overcome the fourth wall: when my character is in the audience, as an audience member should be, and then she comes on to the stage. And this is the moment when from an audience member I become an actress.

Every time it makes me feel nervous because as a human being I’m crossing a very important threshold at that point. Later, there are lots of moments that I love dearly in the show: my quarrel with my husband, the finale of the show that was born out of improvisation from all of us, which makes it highly enjoyable.

What does Steklova like about the character she plays?

Steklova: I can’t say my character is a nice human being, she is not the type I would want to be friends with. But nevertheless she is kind, she is charming in a way and she sincerely means well. She loves her husband and her nephew dearly. Which is quite important for her. She is also very emotional and artistic.

Other than your her own character what other characters in the play interests her and why?
Steklova: Two characters in the show that also end up being caught between two worlds: the world of theatre and the world of my heroine, the audience. Tim, the director of the show (played by Kirill Sbitnev) and Rafe (played by Nazar Safonov), my nephew who ends up in the show. I think those two are most complicated and most interesting characters as they have to be on both sides simultaneously. 

Finally what does Steklova feel an audience will take away from seeing the play?

Steklova: I would like for the audience to walk out thinking that everyone should do their own thing. And if you are a member of the audience you should remain one – you can laugh, cry, smile, applaud or leave if you are not happy with what you are seeing but never interfere and intrude on the actors. Because it is just not possible, it must never happen.

I believe that the fourth wall should always be present as it is an unbreakable rule between the actors and the audience. And if this rule is broken it leads to catastrophe. This is what our show is about. One has to respect other people’s space and territory.

The Knight of the Burning Pestle runs from 5th to 8th Jun 2019 at the Barbican Theatre.