Scientists and Children in Chelyabinsk Table-reading a Novel by the Strugatsky Brothers

In anticipation of the World Theatre Day, a table reading of a Science-Drama format play based on the novel by the Strugatsky brothers was held at the Atomic Energy Information Centre of Chelyabinsk on March 26th.

The Science Drama project by the Atomic Energy Information Centre network is a play reading with the participation of not only professional actors, but of scientists as well. For the first time the project was announced in Chelyabinsk within the "KSTATI. Sistema koordinat" ("BY THE WAY. System of Coordinates") Science Festival in 2017.

This time the play was based on the Ugly Swans, a novel by the Strugatsky brothers. The action takes place in small town in an "unnamed European country", where sullen and apathetic people live, and the rain never stops. Famous writer Victor Banev takes on the role of someone who observes how unknown forces imperceptibly affect the moral image of the town dwellers. Mutant intellectuals called slimies, under the strict control by the government, are brining up the children in this town making them geniuses. And these children are the ones who condemn the deceitful adult world and leave the town in the end of the novel.

It is for a reason that school children have become the play reading's participants as well this time: Anton Antsiperov, Anastasiia Ivanova, and Anna Asadullina.

The play was also read by:

  • Anton Remezov, actor of the Youth Theatre (Young Spectator's Theatre);
  • Ekaterina Mozerova, Candidate of Sciences (Medicine), Head of the Second General Radiology Department of the Chelyabinsk Regional Centre for Oncology and Nuclear Medicine;
  • Evgenii Solomin, Doctor of Sciences (Engineering), Professor of the Department of Power Stations, Grids, and Electric Power Systems of South Ural State University; and
  • Andrei Seliutin, Candidate of Sciences (Philology), Head of the Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics of the Faculty of History and Philology of Chelyabinsk state University.

"The participation in this project was a pleasant surprise for me. The format of table reading is different from acting, but it has a whole range of tricks helping to reach the audience. I'm a creative person, so I'm into music and I've even recorded several discs. But this format, even if it falls beyond the theatre "standards", immediately caught my fancy. And it was not even about that, it was all about becoming part of a friendly, warm-hearted and welcoming team. We had a very wise director and talented performers. But the biggest surprise were the kids. I think that the school children acted better than the adults. I sincerely hope that such projects will keep developing. This is a great idea for fun," Evgenii Solomin shared his impressions.

Andrei Seliutin confessed that such events are refreshing and help escape from the world of problems and cares and immerse oneself in the world of creativity and try on a new role.

 

As the tradition goes, the play was directed by a film and theatre actor Oleg Ivanov, an alumnus of the Boris Shchukin Theatre Institute, as well as of Chelyabinsk State Academy of Culture and Arts, and a Meyerhold Prize awardee and member of the Russian Guild of Theatre Directors.

It was not the first time that Oleg was working with the Science Drama format: he had supervised the staging of such plays in Chelyabinsk as David Auburn's Proof, Don Nigro's Dark Sonnets of the Lady, and Konstantin Skvortsov's Kurchatov. Based on the latter play, an immersive performance had also been staged in the memorial house of Igor Kurchatov in Ozyorsk.

"To me, Science Drama is a project thanks to which I can, first, independently select a work of literature that I like," shared Oleg Ivanov. "And, second, do some work with the text as table reading to a greater extent implies namely the presentation of the text, and not acting – this is very important for a director, to get the feel of the text, where it gains dynamics and where it looses it."

Oleg confided that when working with non-professional actors, he can take a detached view of himself, learn how to explain things in a different, more compact and simpler way. According to him, the novel by the Strugatsky brothers had helped him to take a detached view of himself as a father and become a better person.

You can learn about the upcoming events by the Atomic Energy Information Centre of Chelyabinsk in the Centre's community in VKontakte.

 

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