Alexander Ostuzhev
He completely lost hearing by 1910[2] yet managed to stay on stage and play leading roles at Maly until 1952,[3] including critically acclaimed productions of Othello (1935) and Uriel da Costa (1940).
Most common version, later retold by Ostuzhev himself,[5] connects the choice with the director's fear of the public mistaking the actor's real surname with a fire alarm call.
[5] Historian Yury Eichenwald proposed a different, perhaps parallel, version, that Lensky chose surname Ostuzhev for being opposite to Alexander's hot temper on stage and in real life.
Tommaso Salvini who watched Ostuzhev as Cassio in 1900 rehearsals of Othello, seriously advised him to pursue a career in bel canto singing.
[8] In late 1900s Ostuzhev gradually moved from juvenile, romantic parts of his early days to modern drama, particularly exploring mother and son relationships in a duo with Maria Yermolova (Neznamov in Guilty without Guilt[9] and Zhadov in A Profitable Place by Aleksandr Ostrovsky, Oswald in Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen).
[2] But Ostuzhev defied disability and remained on stage: in August 1909, approaching deafness, he played the tragic part of False Dmitriy I in False Dmitry and Vasily Shuisky by Aleksandr Ostrovsky (August 1909);[10] already deaf, he played in the new Maly productions of Shakespeare's comedies – Ferdinand in The Tempest, Orlando in Twelfth Night (1912) and Bassanio in The Merchant of Venice (1916)[11] He designed and followed a rigorous training routine to stay on stage despite the disability; he memorized all parts of each play flawlessly before the first rehearsal, to be able to read the lips of his stage partners[12] and even provided them with accidental prompting services, undetected by the audience.
Ostuzhev experienced a personal and professional crisis; he retired from his earlier shows, believing that he was too old to play young lovers,[16] and could not secure new, more appropriate, parts in the atmosphere of increased theatrical rivalry.
[20] By December 21, 1937, Maly Theatre produced a record run of 100 performances, although Ostuzhev himself experienced a heart attack on stage in the summer of 1936 and was incapacitated for several months.
[23] After Othello Ostuzhev starred as The Miserly Knight in Little Tragedies by Alexander Pushkin (1937) and in the title role of Uriel da Costa by Karl Gutzkow (1940); the latter became a signature play for Maly.
