Saturn

This performance, played out on the Hammer Stage of the Perm Academic Theater-Theater, focused on an analysis of the phenomenon of tyranny: first, the example of one line from Leo Tolstoy’s novel War and Peace (more specifically, the line of the "domestic tyrant" of the old Prince Bolkonsky), and second, the line of the investigator from Varlam Shalamov’s play Anna Ivanovna, about the rigors of camp life and the investigation, unjust and unrighteous. On a long table, at the head of which sat the imperious "father" (old Prince Bolkonsky), lay the complete works of Vladimir Ulyanov (Lenin), representing an image of tyrannical Soviet power. Behind the artists' backs slowly moved a "ribbon of time" - a 50-meter long linen cloth, which begins its movement with a decrepit old texture and gradually turns into a pure white canvas — the image of the inevitability of time and the fact that even tyrants have no power over it. As a sign of life in the camp, the artists had words written on their faces, usually referring to the characteristics of their characters. An elderly performer crawled across the table in the middle of the play on his hands and knees, ending up as if he were one of the audience. The interrogations he conducted while sitting in the audience became a kind of provocation for the spectator, who was put into a situation as if he were interrogating characters from Shalamov’s play.