©  Larisa Gerasimchuk

This play tells the story of how a man, fully convinced of his righteousness and virtue, discovers he is a fool. Horrified by himself, he actually matures. Volemir experiences the invincible pull of evil, irrational behavior, vulgarity, violence, pettiness, carnality and rationalism. It would be difficult to describe this abyss of abomination with any other words than the “collapse of the world.“

A beach hamburger stand is plastered with wallpaper versions of Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam and advertisements for people selling and trading things. What is this peering out of the detritus of the daily grind? How do you reconcile this mishmash with the image of God's creation? Amid all these loans for household appliances, fancy coats and false claims of happiness, how do you reclaim your childhood dreams when everything was possible, when you wanted to save the world, to become an astronaut or a fireman?

„I differ from humanists in that I believe a person is essentially not good but evil. Despite God's plan, Man is essentially grounded in the Devil. That is why it is necessary to exert such effort to keep him from harm. It is not always possible.” — Fridrikh Gorenshtein.

When we think about the Thaw of the 1960s, we rarely think of the Soviet haze, the absurdity and the delusions… but Volemir takes us to the closet of the cheered-up house, and there we find all of the “skeletons” — the fears, the grief, the misery of the Soviet man, who still lives inside all of us.

Zoya Apostolskaya, Rossiyskaya Gazeta

Opening night: January 30, 2016

Running time: 2 hours 50 minutes with one intermission