September 21 and 22, Boćarski dom at 8:00 p.m.
Taras Shevchenko State Academic Drama Theatre, Ukraine

directed by: Andriy Zholdak

A free theatre fantasy based on the novel by Alexander Solzhenitsyn

In Alexander Solzhenitsyn's world-famous tale, that one day in the life of Ivan Denisovich "was almost happy" at its close, thus providing a starting-point for the young Ukrainian director Andriy Zholdak to speak about the conditions for happiness in an authoritarian regime. His theatre production is no stage version of the book but rather uses impressive images to compose a machine of dehumanisation within collapsing systems. Zholdak makes do almost without spoken words, exposing his hero to a pack of nameless "hare people" - a pack whose inner rules are reinforced with kicks and suppression. Zholdak's theatre is eloquent about a system of silence. His metaphor of a journey through human chaos is a warning to a society that can only dream of paradise and, consequently, has to find its road to heaven through hell. With his interpretation of the "theatre of cruelty", this pupil of the Moscow-based theatre wizard Anatoly Vasilyev has rekindled the discussion about the social significance of the theatre far beyond Ukrainian borders.

Duration: 110 mins, 1 interval