Sunday, September 21
Theatre "Skatuve"
Maskavas Str. 108/110
5:30 PM and 8:00 PM
In Russian
Duration: 55 min.
Tickets: 4 Ls

VIDEO WINDOW

Ivan Viripaev
Oxygen
Ten Commandments in rap style

"Theatre.doc", Russia, Moscow

Author: Ivan Viripaev
Director: Victor Ryzhakov
Design: Alyona Dubinina, Maksim Ushakov, Ludmila Mezenceva
Actors: Ivan Viripaev, Arina Marakulina
DJ: Irina Rodionova

Premiera: September 29, 2002
The performance has gained the main prize of the theatre festival "Contact" in Poland

Performance
The main hero - a guy named Sasha from a provincial town - came to Moscow and met a red-haired Moscow girl named Sasha. And he murdered his wife with a spade. Since she had no red hair and did not know what oxygen was. He had never heard "thou shalt not kill", since he was "in the player"...
On a simple stage at the background of ad posters and DJ Irina Rodionova at the DJ desk the author of the text Ivan Viripaev together with the actress Irina Marakulina perform ten compositions in rap style on the theme of ten Bible commandments. The audience is buried at a ferocious temp in textual avalanches, in which four letter words are mixed with Bible rhetoric. The text holds a special, crude imagery, which as if breaks through our envelope of strict preconceptions and banality covering our brain. The speed of the speech calls for the speed in thinking, in order to follow the paradoxical, but rigorously logical thinking of the author-performer, which is questioning all traditional values. "All hierarchy has been revoked, but the non-dramatic pathos of dying in the worst of possible worlds has been substituted with the pathos of living." (Marina Davidova). But in order to survive, people need oxygen…
In the Russian press this project is characterized in very different ways - from "the manifest of generation, rather cynical and to a great extent - relativistic", up to "existential religious practice". Ivan Viripaev has been likened to Jevgeniy Grishkovec, known also here, since both of them bring theatre close to life, themselves becoming the main heroes in works of art, based in their own experience. If Grishkovec could be called the bard of a theatre, then Viripaev is the young rap artist and DJ of theatre.

Author
Ivan Viripayev (1974) an actor, playwright and director from Irkutsk, since 2001 lives and works in Moscow. In 1998 in Irkutsk he founded a studio theatre "Space of Game" ("Prostranstvo igri"), the actors of which now have moved together with him to Moscow. In this theatre Viripaev staged his plays "Dreams" (2002), which is now included into the repertoire of "Theatre.doc", and "The City in Which I" (2001). Viripaev has written two more plays - "Valentine's Day" (2002) and "Oxygen" (2002). The play "Valentine's Day" brought him the Award of the President's Council. Presently director Viktor Rizhakov is staging this play as an independent project with the participation of the famous Russian actress Era Ziganshina.

"Theatre.doc"
"Theatre.doc" is a rather recent and noteworthy phenomenon in Russian, especially Moscow theatre life. Russian press has claimed it to be the most "fashionable" theatre in Moscow. The small basement is usually crowded with audience, eager to see… productions of contemporary Russian plays. "Theatre.doc." is an initiative of the playwrights themselves (Yelena Gremina and Mikhail Ugarov), who got bored complaining that their plays were not produced. Very often the playwrights themselves stage contemporary Russian plays at this theatre, especially promoting the so-called documentary drama.

Links (in Russian)
Critics, interviews www.newdrama.ru
"Dance in a Player", Natalya Gribkova www.blessthem.narod.ru/oxigen.html
"With the Last Breath", Marina Davidova; ""Oxygen" - Admitted in a Club", Roman Dolzhansky - www.smotr.ru/2002/2002_doc_o2.htm
"Searching for the Oxygen in the Gassed Air", Natalya Serova www.russ.ru/culture/podmostki/20030303_serova-pr.html
"Writer - a Shameless Man", interview with Ivan Viripaev www.newdrama.ru/press/art_2151/
Interview with Ivan Viripaev www.newdrama.ru/press/art_2102/
Ivana Viripajeva persoal site www.viripaev.pisem.net
The play "Valentine's Day" www.viripaev.pisem.net/valentinov.htm
The play "Dreams" www.viripaev.pisem.net/sni.htm
The play "City where I" www.viripaev.pisem.net/gorod.htm

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