Yevgeny Mironov ... just upped and refuted all the doubts that many had when Kirill Serebrennikov gave him the part. His portrayal of Little Judas at the Chekhov Moscow Art Theater is as subtle – in a uniquely Chekhovian way – as it is trenchant in the way of Schedrin.
Yevgeny Mironov as Little Judas is not merely good; he is, quite literally, terribly good. For the evolution of a family tyrant, hypocrite and de facto destroyer of his own hearth and its denizens (all this, of course, under the aegis of love), exposed by Mironov in all its unholy dynamics and meticulous detail, is terrifying indeed. In this rare turn as a villain, every single facet of Mironov's talent shines: his acting is subtle, complex, diverse, and punctilious in the best sense of the word. He's so effective, he gives you the chills – no hope of coming in from the cold to this production.

Yevgeny Mironov in the role of Little Judas (Golden Mask for Best Actor) comes on as such a severe judge of the character he plays, he gives such a scrupulous and eloquent demonstration of the depths to which a human being can sink, that the entire production becomes, in Russia's best classical tradition, a grand condemnation of the kind that results in catharsis.

Yevgeny Mironov paints a stunningly subtle portrait of an obedient boy turned monster, a wolf's soul dressed in God's lamb's clothing, with only one power denied him – the ability to cross himself.

Virtuoso Yevgeny Mironov demonstrates the myriad nuances of playing a one-string instrument, the way to dance the grand waltz on a single dot in a director's blueprint.

Mironov incarnates Little Judas as flawlessly as he once did Myshkin. To date, the martyr Prince and the vampire Golovlyov are the actor's two crowning achievements.

To think about it, Mironov bears an inordinate burden of responsibility – for his entire generation of actors at once, which has squandered its collective gift on feeble revues, dumb TV shows, kitsch, trash, whatever... ... We have no name to put alongside Mironov's. There is no "Rat Pack". It's not even about the talent, it's about the application. It's that Mironov is the only artist in his age group who has the old-fashioned earnestness to see working on a role as an unceasing labor of the soul.


[Translated by Vlada Chernomordik for the Yevgeny Mironov Official Website]