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<\/a>That BEFORE hangs over the audience like the sword of Damocles. It permeates the space like cigarette smoke, like quiet music. And how, one might ask, can music be compared to the sword of Damocles? More on that later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The ensemble \u2014 Alisa Khazanova, Maria Bolshova, and Vasily Zorky \u2014 perform with astonishing precision, as if they had rehearsed every day for six months. They take genuine pleasure in each other\u2019s presence \u2014 one might even say joy \u2014 though they speak of fundamental, generational matters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And they are all utterly different: in their acting nature, in their natural temperament. When actors perform so close to the audience, these differences become especially visible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Khazanova plays cautiously, almost in half-movements \u2014 her fingers, like little bird beaks, touch the table and objects as if afraid of harming them. Her Sonya herself is cautious, her steps uncertain, as though she were not at home, as though she were apologizing for existing at all. And this image opens toward the finale like Pandora\u2019s box for which the key has finally been found. It opens suddenly, like a wound-up clock spring snapping loose \u2014 in a perfectly executed explosion of despair and panic attack, where the past hums in the background, impossible either to change or to accept.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is impossible to take one\u2019s eyes off Maria Bolshova\u2019s heroine \u2014 she plays Masha as openly beautiful, eccentric, at times hysterical, tousled and graceful. But even this openness is not complete. It will unfold further when Masha balances on the soft armrest of an armchair by the open window \u2014 so recklessly that your heart contracts. Yet she is like a cat with nine lives. Her \u201cI want!\u201d is not selfishness but a desperate thirst for life, a stream breaking through a thick layer of duty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Philipp \u2014 Vasily Zorky himself, both actor and author \u2014 controls the sound of the evening. Without hiding behind a sound engineer or a booth, without theatrical tricks where sound seems to emerge from nowhere, he simply clicks the buttons of a laptop within reach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Zorky seems to observe what is happening from somewhere deep beneath the surface \u2014 with a tenth layer of consciousness, an actor-director\u2019s gaze \u2014 yet this does not distract him from his character: languid, composed, clearly well-off, and the most closed-off of them all. Actor, screenwriter, a little director, a little host \u2014 yes, partly Zorky\u2019s alter ego, partly a lyrical hero, and, most intriguingly, a mirror.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The more he speaks about himself, the more he illuminates his companions \u2014 a strange reflective effect. He goes to the window to smoke, he teases, jokes, grows irritated, grows sad \u2014 and in doing so provokes the women to reveal themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A mischievous rock band on tour, honestly \u2014 so different, and yet together (forgive the silly quote from an old commercial; I couldn\u2019t resist).<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is hard to resist: \u201cNight Conversation\u201d is full of recognizable details and quotations. Zorky writes about the world he comes from, about people he knows well. The signs of the times, the surnames, the references and subtexts are scattered generously throughout \u2014 not for their own sake, but because this is life, its imprint, almost a document of the era. Though \u201cera\u201d sounds too grand \u2014 everything here is so post-repost and meta-meta that it is both ridiculous and terrifying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On the poster, Night Conversation is modestly described as a reading, but it is in fact a full performance. A fully directed, performed, conceived story distributed throughout the space of ARC.SPACE \u2014 and at times spilling beyond it: through the door, onto the staircase, out the window.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The enormous window is a set piece in itself. In the middle of it hangs a screen, not fully covering the frame, so the film is bordered by sky and rooftops. Golden window lights, heavy attic structures of old houses, blinking signals of airplanes gliding through the rapidly darkening sky. When one character or another stands against the backdrop of the city, a strange sensation arises. Often theatre breaks when it collides with reality, but here reality enriches and reinforces the theatre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One more character must be mentioned \u2014 visible to the audience but invisible to the heroes. Cinematographer Artur Bergart, quiet and precise, either angel or surgeon (though the red knitted cap seems more suited to an angel), moves through the space between cameras and with a camera in his hands, enlarging not so much faces as eyes and their expressions. A silent witness, Bergart keeps the diary of this night \u2014 in a sense, the last one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You can almost physically feel how today\u2019s reality is advancing upon these still pre-war characters. Remember the sword of Damocles and the music?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>