The revenants
YBW-theatre group, Moscow
Presented in the frame of Russian Case 2018
Immersive show based on GHOSTS by Henrik Ibsen
Directors: Migel, Victor Carinha, Mia Zanette
Age category 18+
Directors: Migel, Victor Carinha, Mia Zanette
Age category 18+
Immersive theatre isn't just in fashion, it is an explosion, a sudden high-wrought passion of Muscovites. Many have made their first theatre experience, and this one is so exotic that they hardly want to move back into the traditional theatre box. The plot of Ibsen’s play “Ghosts” (as it is called in the Russian tradition), in which friends and relatives get ready to go to the opening of an orphanage that has been established with the money of Captain Alving’s widow and in his memory, has proven to be well-suited for such an experiment. The show provided a pretext for a new translation of Ibsen’s play and for bringing back its original freshness (together with the title).
After “The Revenants”, any theatre project may seem traditional, even in the most radical experiments the spectator is mostly in the role of the observer. In “The Revenants” he has a completely different role. Voyeurism is no longer a symbolic “peeping” into a dark theatre hall or any other space; it becomes real life experience, putting the spectator into a special mode. The spectator gets a mask and becomes not only incognito, but also one of the revenants, the ghosts from another world, the “dibbuks” that haunt the guilty conscience of the inhabitants of a four-storey building in the centre of old Moscow. From time to time somebody gets in contact with them, they are offered to lull a baby to sleep, or hugged tenderly, or taken into a small room to hear something really important. But mainly on this 3D journey inside Ibsen’s play the spectator is left to observe and spy freely, without fear of being discovered.
Unlike shows of this kind, which are usually predominantly based on movement, the full text of the play has been used. In each of the 50 rooms in the mansion, a part of the story is played out, giving the spectator a special pleasure of trying to grasp and follow as many storylines as possible.
“The Revenants” is the result of a collaboration between directors Victor Carinha and Mia Zanette from the New York company Journey Lab and Russian producers Vyacheslav Dusmuhametov and Migel, the director and mentor for the show “Dances” on the TNT TV Channel.
After “The Revenants”, any theatre project may seem traditional, even in the most radical experiments the spectator is mostly in the role of the observer. In “The Revenants” he has a completely different role. Voyeurism is no longer a symbolic “peeping” into a dark theatre hall or any other space; it becomes real life experience, putting the spectator into a special mode. The spectator gets a mask and becomes not only incognito, but also one of the revenants, the ghosts from another world, the “dibbuks” that haunt the guilty conscience of the inhabitants of a four-storey building in the centre of old Moscow. From time to time somebody gets in contact with them, they are offered to lull a baby to sleep, or hugged tenderly, or taken into a small room to hear something really important. But mainly on this 3D journey inside Ibsen’s play the spectator is left to observe and spy freely, without fear of being discovered.
Unlike shows of this kind, which are usually predominantly based on movement, the full text of the play has been used. In each of the 50 rooms in the mansion, a part of the story is played out, giving the spectator a special pleasure of trying to grasp and follow as many storylines as possible.
“The Revenants” is the result of a collaboration between directors Victor Carinha and Mia Zanette from the New York company Journey Lab and Russian producers Vyacheslav Dusmuhametov and Migel, the director and mentor for the show “Dances” on the TNT TV Channel.
Alyona Karas
Прошлое и настоящее перепутаны, существуют одновременно, сны наслаиваются на реальные события, а персонажи двоятся. От актеров требуется особе умение быть достоверными. Однако самое сильное чувство все же испытываешь, когда остаешься один в пустом коридоре дома и полностью погружаешься в ирреальный мир, придуманный создателями спектакля.
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