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December 31, 2010
A crisp urban comedy
Chepovetsky plays a complex role in This.
OLGA LIVSHIN
The Playhouse starts 2011 with the Canadian première of This, a comedy by Melissa James Gibson that originally played off-Broadway in 2009 to great reviews. One of the five characters in This, described as “a crisp, smart urban comedy about modern relationships in crisis,” is played by Dmitry Chepovetsky, a Canadian actor who divides his time between Vancouver and Toronto.
“I enjoy it when people laugh,” Chepovetsky said in an interview with the Independent. “As a kid, I always entertained my family. When we emigrated from Russia in 1977, I was six. We lived in Italy for several months, and my brother worked there at a gas station. I entertained people there.”
Chepovetsky’s childhood pastime turned into a vocation and, as a teenager, he participated both in school musicals and community theatre. But he did experience one deviation from the acting path. After graduating high school, he enrolled in a commerce program at the University of Toronto, on a scholarship, and took a hiatus from acting. His exposure to the theories of commerce lasted three weeks before he dropped out, unsatisfied. Returning to his first love, he was accepted at Ryerson Theatre School, where he studied for three years while supporting himself, like many a young actor, as a waiter.
Chepovetsky has always liked traveling, so he went backpacking through Europe, Turkey and Israel after Ryerson. When he returned to Canada nine months later, he got his first role as a professional actor and his theatrical debut was in Vancouver in 1993.
Even though he has spent a good deal of time on stage and on screen, Chepoversky said he has never stopped studying. Over the years, he has taken several acting and directing classes, both in Canada and abroad. In 2008, he travelled to Italy to participate in a directors symposium and an intensive playwright workshop.
“I’ve been lucky in my acting career,” he said. His list of roles is long and the range of characters he has played reveals his diversity as an actor. Some of his characters have been historical figures, like Nikola Tesla, the late 19th- and early 20th-century electrical engineer, famous for his discoveries in the field of electromagnetism. In recent years, Chepovetsky has spent more time on television projects, including appearing in two episodes of Murdoch Mysteries, a role for which he received a Gemini Award nomination in 2008.
One of his latest roles was in the science-fiction show Caprica. The character has been popular with viewers: flamboyant and surreal in its alien exotica, soulless and pitiful simultaneously.
Chepovetsky’s biggest role so far was playing the recurring character of Bob Melnikov in ReGenesis, another sci-fi program. Like many of Chepovetsky’s parts, Melnikov is a complex character. He is a brilliant scientist, a tender lover and a person with Asperger syndrome. For this portrayal, Chepovetsky received two Gemini Award nominations: in 2005 and 2007.
In all his work, Chepovetsky aims to be true to human nature. “As an actor, I can travel through time. I can be everything I want to be ... but human behavior has been governed by the same emotions from Shakespeare to Caprica. It’s all the same story, just different interpretations. There are only 32 plot lines. You take one of them and offer your personal take on the character,” he said.
With his evident ability, Chepovetsky receives many acting offers but, when he’s less scheduled, he creates parts for himself, by writing his own shows.
“Roles find you,” he said. “It takes luck but it also takes perseverance and, of course, timing. You have to be in the right place at the right time.”
Theatre remains his passion, however.
“I love the immediate response of the theatre, the unpredictability. It changes every night,” he explained. “But I love working for the screen, too. I love what I do.”
Finding such happiness in his work, Chepovetsky pushes the boundaries, participating in a fringe theatre production, or even a free show, when his income allows.
“I always practise my craft,” he said with a smile. And he’s not afraid to take risks. “One year, I was in four shows, among them the best of the year and the worst of the year.”
As ready to laugh at himself as he was in childhood, he said he still rejoices in people laughing along with him. In This, he plays Alan, a mnemonist – a man who remembers every detail of what happens to him.
“The play is about a group of friends in their late 30s, early 40s,” Chepovetsky explained. “It’s a comedy, but it also deals with lots of serious issues: parenthood, mortality, adultery…. My character’s ability to remember everything is a real condition. There are such people. It’s a gift and a curse: you’re unable to let go, even if it hurts.”
This, directed by Amiel Gladstone and starring Chepovetsky and Megan Follows (of Anne of Green Gables fame) is on at the Vancouver Playhouse from Jan. 8-29. For tickets, call 604-873-3311, visit vancouverplayhouse.com or head to the Playhouse box office.
Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She’s available for contract work. Contact her at [email protected].
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