Sunset

The world beyond the glass as a metaphor for separateness, isolation, and the impossibility of communication: Dmitry Volkostреlov’s production returns to the stage of the House of Culture.

Please note: as the performance takes place only at sunset, the start time may vary. Please refer to the time indicated on your ticket. Please arrive a little early in order to collect your audio player and headphones. In the event of bad weather, the performance may be cancelled, in which case you will be notified by email.

The space of the performance is divided in two: the audience are situated inside the GES-2 building, whilst the actors are in the Forest, beyond the glass wall of the Playhouse. Out there, a living tableau unfolds—a human landscape set against the backdrop of a sunset sky.

Illustration:
Gosha Bergal, Katya Maslova

The dramaturgical structure of the project is built upon the principle of chance. The audience cannot hear what is taking place outside; however, each person is provided with a pair of headphones and an audio player. One may select any channel, switch freely from one audio track to another, or turn the sound off altogether. In this way, at any given moment, each member of the audience creates their own performance. The spectator is at once a passive witness to the action and the author of their own narrative, constructing their own version of events unfolding behind the glass.

In Volkostреlov and Pryazhko’s production, Sunset is not merely a time of day, but a collection of states and situations in which the characters find themselves. One person discusses how mobile phones have changed since the release of the first iPhone; another listens to a lecture on finding happiness; a third is rehearsing a play. A multitude of voices merge into the hum of everyday urban life: birdsong, music drifting from passing cars. The atmosphere of a summer evening at dusk—something we ordinarily perceive as mere background—itself becomes the plot and subject of the performance.

Dmitry Volkostrelov (b. 1982, Moscow) is a theatre director. He studied under Lev Dodin at the Russian State Institute of Performing Arts in Saint Petersburg. He founded and led the independent Post Theatre in Saint Petersburg, served as artistic director of the Vsevolod Meyerhold Centre in Moscow (2020–2022), and was a member of the Jubilee Year Group at the Taganka Theatre, Moscow (2013–2014). He has directed productions at the Theatre of Nations and the Bryantsev Youth Theatre in Moscow, the Comedian’s Shelter in Saint Petersburg, Stage-Molot in Perm, and the Ugol Creative Laboratory in Kazan, as well as a production of the opera Eugene Onegin at the Ural Opera Ballet Theatre in Yekaterinburg. Volkostrelov has won prizes at the Breakthrough Youth Theatre Awards in Saint Petersburg on three occasions (2010, 2011, 2012) and at the Golden Mask Awards in Moscow twice (2013, 2020).

Pavel Pryazhko is a playwright who rose to prominence in 2007 upon receiving the Grand Prix at the Free Theatre competition. His plays have been translated into Polish, German, English, French, Latvian, Lithuanian, and Finnish, and have been staged by directors including Dmitry Volkostреlov, Filipp Grigoryan, Mikhail Ugarov, and many others.

Photos: Gosha Bergal

Creative team

Director
Dmitry Volkostреlov

Playwright
Pavel Pryazhko

Costume designer
Alexei Lobanov

Composer
Dmitry Vlasik

Lighting designer
Elena Perelman

Sound designer
Yulia Kozlova

Curator
Anna Ildatova

Media specialist
Kate Kiseleva

Producers
Ekaterina Arkhipova, Darya Shadrina

Technical team
Artyom Marenkov, Nikita Tolkachev

Actors
Alena Bondarchuk, Margarita Denisova, Rodion Dolgirev, Alexei Karakulov, Anzhelika Katysheva, Miroslav Lashkevich, Alexei Martynov, Leonid Samorukov, Natalya Sapetskaya, Ivan Semyonov, Pyotr Skvortsov, Inna Sukhoretskaya, Alexander Userdin

Voices
Maryana Cherenkova, Adelina Chervyakova, Sasha Kalenkevich, Dmitry Korobkov, Dinara Yankovskaya

Musicians
Ignat Krasikov, Ulyana Leonova, Feodosiya Mironova, Darya Torgushnikova