Mad Polish Monarch in Warsaw

What makes a man, an artist with decades of international success behind him, up and start out on a new life? Perhaps that is overstating the latest twist in Andrei Konchalovsky's 45-year career, but it seems a fair assessment of the filmmaker's recent love affair with theater.

Sitting still briefly just minutes before his latest stage production opened in Warsaw -- a meticulous, sweeping rendition of Shakespeare's "King Lear" starring the renowned Polish actor Daniel Olbrychski -- Konchalovsky didn't even bother to ponder the question of whether he has turned his back on film: "Oh, it doesn't interest me," he said perfunctorily, as if stating the obvious. "I've got 12 plays I want to do now," he added. "All of Chekhov, of course. Three Shakespeares. 'Antigone.' A few others."

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