Berdnikova is an actress and a promoter of thoughtful reading for both children and adults, as well as the founder of the international club Bukutoku. Reading is both her professional and personal passion.

Yet the genre of dramatic reading is one of the most challenging. No scenery, no costumes, no character masks — only the actor and the audience. Actress Dina Berdnikova is not afraid of the audience (let us recall her solo performance “Things”), and the audience adores her — including for her fearlessness.

To step before an audience with such a range of characters — from the genius inventor of Umberto Eco to the young pianist Lelya from Nina Dashevskaya’s works — is like riding a roller coaster with a loop somewhere near Chekhov’s Ivan Gavrilych from the story “Which of the Three?”

The texts were separated from one another by cosmic and meditative sounds of the hang drum positioned at Kostyts’s knee. Other instruments — drum, triangle, sampler — helped illustrate the reading with soundscapes. Kostyts is a Ukrainian-Greek musician and musical director, the creator of the entertainment company Pulsar ShowLab. He works with Grammy and Eurovision laureates and performs with Jamala and KAZKA. A modern, versatile musician who shifts effortlessly from one artistic role to another. It was clear that becoming the musical illustrator of this evening was a pleasure for him.

A “gallery of literary portraits” — the phrase sounds dull enough to set one’s teeth on edge, yet behind these three words lies a rich and vivid collection of characters portrayed by Berdnikova, sometimes without the slightest mercy toward them. The audience occasionally laughs, as if the actress wishes to distract them from the heavy content. She jokes through intonation, sometimes distancing herself from the characters, sometimes “growing into” them, sometimes moving into another corner of the garden that seemed to spring up unexpectedly in the middle of Arc Space — which, indeed, is a perfect venue for evenings of this kind.

Against the backdrop of photographs by Roman Liberov (a documentary filmmaker whose exhibition is currently on view at Arc Space), a petite Berdnikova sat in a large armchair — with an ordinary office folder containing the texts, dressed in a black pantsuit and a daringly delicate silk lace blouse that softened the strictness of the suit. In the second half, the heavy earrings disappeared from her ears — a choice justified by the texts: the second part might be called “about children,” though not necessarily for children.

There was little that was funny or sweet in the selected works. Among the texts read by Dina were Richard Matheson’s terrifying story “Button, Button,” Grigory Gorin’s sorrowful “The Hedgehog” (a tale of futile fuss), and Teffi’s “Katenka.” Strikingly, in the latter even tender youth crystallizes into a merciless thought.

It is this very thought that unites all the evening’s characters. It binds together the ruthless General ready to kill to obtain That Very Thing, the beautiful Nadenka who chooses money over love (and Chekhov himself brands his heroine “a young, pretty, depraved little wretch,” while Berdnikova’s voice turns this dreadful phrase into the ringing of gold coins), the sweating, snorting father from Gorin’s story, and young Liza Komarova from Viktoria Lederman’s book “Vasilkin Will Go to the Blackboard… School Stories of Dima Vasilkin.”

What could a schoolgirl possibly have in common with a murderous leader? She merely pushed answers onto a classmate during lessons, while the leader crushed someone’s head with a stone. The common thread, Berdnikova seems to suggest, is ethical choice — the ethical choice made every second. Of course, she never declares such banner-like proclamations outright — heaven forbid. Yet this honest message is clearly felt. As a character from a children’s book once said, “A person must be a person, not a pig.” And one should not press buttons for fabulous sums of money — especially when it is obvious, even to a hedgehog snorting angrily in someone’s hands, that nothing good will come of it.

Fortunately, the evening concluded with a story by Nina Dashevskaya about young musicians. There, too, are many “choices,” as well as unfortunate teenagers abandoned by their parents, leading secret lives in music school. But somehow — whether through the actress’s voice or her interpretation — it suddenly seemed that not all is lost, and someone might still make the right choice. Beethoven’s Spring Sonata, spring itself, and the first day “without a hat” — and spring still lies ahead, as if Berdnikova and Kostyts were telling us.