Chinghiz Aitmatov
Based on the novel of the same name, the play tell the story of the family of Abutalip Kuttybaev, which occasionally ended up at a tiny station village Bornaly-Buranny at the endless Kazakh steppes in 1953. Soulful story is told by 4 actors and 9 puppets. Their tiny toy world tries to embrace the Universe and its limitlessness: from a camel, which runs alongside railroad track to space ships, which are sent to other galaxies. You are discreetly moved from close huts to a vast spaceport. There is train going just nearby. And then you are already riding the train yourself. Just a minute ago, Asian songs surrounded the stage, and now you are floating in starry space.
The real museum artefacts are present during the play that was created by GULAG History Museum. All of them were collected during expeditions to the former camp sites. A life of a real person lays beyond every prisoner’s plate, lamp from sinister uranium mines of Chukotka, barbed wire, shovel, pick.
Directors
Roman Romanov
Producer
Designer
Olga Shaidullina
Composer
Cast:
Actors
Oleg Shapkov, Evgeny Kozlov
Irina Latushko, Tatiana Sarukhanova.
"Probably for the first time, the art of documentation, which became so common for drama theatre and wich is so popular in animation, is speaking with puppetry language"
Aleksey Gorcharenko
Petersburg theatre magazine
"Premiere is targeted on family audience: for the first time Kalipanov and Shaidullina address such mature themes, such as memory and oblivion, faith and its ugly metamorphosis… A rocket of “a new life” escapes a basement, which is usually depicted as hell, and destroys cosy world of tiny men"
Alexandra Soldatova
“Screen and stage”
"Play “The Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years” uses puppets, and as it is traditional for good puppetry, speaks the language of metaphors. For instance, train body is created from a real brass shell… Before the play the director of the Museum Roman Romanov shows the audience an unremarkable pot cover. A name is scratched on it: Tazhibek. Then the action begins, and the train takes the artifact from Museum’s collections away into the darkness and obscurity …"
Lilya Palveleva
“Radio Svoboda”
Awards:
