Spectacle "The Thunderstorm" – Variations
SPECTACLE
"The Thunderstorm" – Variations
based on the works "The Thunderstorm" by Alexander Ostrovsky and "A Sky Blue Life" by Maxim Gorky
Genre: Tragicomedy
Appropriate for age 13+
Duration: 1 hour 20 minutes
Director: Maria de Valukhoff
The presentation is a compilation of two works from the great Russian classics: Alexander Ostrovsky's play "The Thunderstorm" (1859) and Maxim Gorky's story "A Sky Blue Life" (1924). The unexpected combination of such dissimilar texts from completely disparate spaces made it possible to intricately layer and intertwine the dramatic feelings of the characters and achieve an effect of endless expansion of meanings.
The production is presented in a special innovative manner, masterly combining various stage genres, elements of immersive theater as well as spectacular multimedia techniques.
Based on the minute-by-minute chronicle of the insanity of poet Mironov, who lives in a remote provincial town, the story describes a "little man" who is unable to understand himself, to define the boundaries of good and evil, and to combine love and thirst for freedom. Living among people without aspirations and dreams, he in contrast to them desires to rise above the ordinary in an attempt to feel unlike everyone else, and so invents for himself a different "blue Parisian life". The protagonist imagines happiness alternately as Chagall's hovering with Bella over the city in the painting "Over the Town", or as Natalia Goncharova's ‘The Blue Cow’, and as the ‘Blue House‘, also by Chagall. Mironov hears the deafening sounds of crickets and the clink of dishes like disturbing music, indicating that his illusory world has been disturbed.
From the first bars of the performance, the viewer is immersed in the atmosphere of fantasy sensations, mirages, and sounds. Holograms and spectacular multimedia installations give the language of the story a special aesthetic and expressiveness. The words and visuals of the characters form a single whole. The director conducts a vivid experiment on stage, intricately combining sound, color, form, and word in which it is easy to trace the influence of the Russian avant-garde movement of the 1920s.
Music has a special role in the performance: it connects the worlds of feelings and fantasies of the characters. Folklore songs/parables allow the heroes to see themselves from the outside, enter the images of other characters, and try on their doubts and experiences.
The creators of the play and actors:
Director: Maria de Valukhoff
Artist: Evgeniy Raitses
Composer: Vladimir Beluntsov
Poet: Natalia Bogatova
Six characters are involved in the play
Project cost: 40,000 Euro
