Premiere of the play "Letters from the Ashes" staged by Andrei Smolko at the Bolshoi Puppet Theater

ST. PETERSBURG. Many theaters today are preparing military-themed performances dedicated to the upcoming anniversary of Victory Day. They recall the events of the Great Patriotic War. The Bolshoi Puppet Theater turned to a time more distant from us - the First World War. Director Andrei Smolko presented the premiere performance on March 17, based on the stories of Isaac Babel, included in the series “On the Field of Honor”.

In the production, called “Letters from the Ashes”, the audience faces the events of the First World War, described by Isaac Babel in three short stories, where the inimitable grotesque of the author mixes the tragic with the funny. The main thing that unites the stories that have become a performance is the commandment “Do not kill”, which has become the thread connecting the short stories together.

The characters described by Babel were embodied on the Small Stage of the theater by BTK artists - Renat Shavaliev and Dmitry Chupakhin, Nikita Kostyukevich and Mikhail Grishin. The acting ensemble is complemented by the image of war, embodied in the scenery created by scenographer Anastasia Yudina. The directors show in their work how disgusting the war and senseless deaths are, how irreversibly the human soul is deformed at this time.

The performance begins with a short story where the old horse becomes the hero. Abandoned by everyone, he regains his protector and friend. In the next novel, the main character becomes a young French lieutenant, who considers war an adventure. The hero of the last story is the Russian captain, in the name of fulfilling his duty, forced to crush human feelings in himself.

The actors’ play is supplemented by shots of war chronicles, and the cold of metal structures moving on the stage inside the burnt house, on the floor covered with ashes, is contrasted with the living warmth of the actors.

Ludmila Trautmane © Gallerix.ru