Russian artists from Israel played “Bloody Mary”

Schiller was diluted with tomato juice, added a degree, and it turned out ... traumatic life without a head (playwright - Katya Sosonskaya). Not far from Baku there is an amazing beauty of the Agat Mountains. They are pink, a real miracle of nature. It was there that the Soviet film “The Headless Rider” was shot with Oleg Vidov in the title role, also a wanderer, as well as the actors of “Gesher”, who lived the second half of his life in the United States.

The name Gesher translates as “bridge”, and the festival in Baku builds bridges between the past, present and future, between people scattered around the world. A year ago, Gesher participated in the first Baku festival with Anna Karenina.

At the “Bloody Mary” staged by Dmitry Krymov, which premiered in Tel Aviv on June 21, 2026, audiences came from Moscow, St. Petersburg, Riga. Many famous and theatrical people visited the two shows. Among them are the singer and composer, ex-Minister of Culture of Azerbaijan and diplomat Polad Bul-Bul-ogly, Tatiana Yeltsina, Valentin Yumashev, Roman Abramovich. Even bloggers from Russia came.

An hour and a half performance goes without intermission and begins while the audience sits down. On the stage, painters paint plywood walls with rollers pink. The background is news reports about what is happening in Russia and Israel, about a pigeon declared a Chinese spy. This is very recent information, which we learned in the morning, for example, about St. Petersburg with a shot in the head. Some kind of universal absurdity.

Schiller is diluted with all sorts of things, talk about theater, behind the scenes life, including Israeli. A friend of mine living in Tel Aviv is wondering if everything is clear. But you don’t have to be immersed in the details of Tel Aviv reality to understand what’s right. The game overflows, embracing life.

Very soon, a queue is formed on the stage in the trauma room of strange characters. A diver wearing pink gloves resembles an alien from space. He can not get rid of the huge helmet, and the air supply inside is rapidly decreasing. But they don't let him in. Without a queue can only be decapitated.

On a blue bicycle sits a man whose foot is stuck in the spokes of the wheel. Nearby there is an empty suit, devoid of owner, a flat black hat without a head, instead of it - a photo of the ancestral lord. The schoolboy pierced the girl's head with a fork, and she in response ripped off his head. The children sit in line with their grandmothers. Only one of them (played by Israel (Sasha) Demidov) looks more or less like a real grandmother. Except that it is too tall and resembles a man who wore women's shoes and a short, ageless dress.

The nurse (Polina Pakhomova) is almost a Snow Maiden who grants wishes. Just changed the coat to a medical robe in the spray of tomato or cranberry juice, which many here expire, as in the Block "Balaganchik". Katya Erdeni is responsible for scenography and costumes, the legendary Gleb Filshtinsky is responsible for lighting.

Grandmothers of bullies in their free time from grandchildren work in the theater and not to waste time, read the text of Schiller. The premiere soon.

In the windows exhibit the royal costumes of Elizabeth and Mary Stewart. Almost imperceptibly, Israel (Sasha) Demidov will be dressed in them, and before our eyes he will turn into the Queen of England, and Eugene Dodin, who will become the Queen of Scotland. The bookstore was shaken up and the characters reassembled. Again, the White and Black Queens on the chessboard. Sasha Demidov has already played female roles, for example, Desdemon. Evgenia Dodin played men.

Two theatrical prims, not just queens, can't share a piece of cake. They are no longer Schiller’s heroines, but actors of modern theater. At some point, the queens will become just Sasha and Zhenya, will begin to clarify the relationship, remember the temporary absence of Dodina, who played at one time in the Stuttgart theater.

Everyone is on the verge of clowning and grotesque. Schiller is just an excuse to talk about today. About him made a film in Germany, such that the mother does not grieve – hidden all the background. Different eras are mixed, but the thirst for superiority and the desire to command someone in the blood of a person at any time.

Mary Stuart is executed, but even after the pulp, her severed head will tell her whole husband on a mobile phone to warm up the cutlets from the refrigerator. Rehearsal is over. Life goes on.

In 1991, that is, 35 years ago, the director Evgeny Arye was fascinated by the idea of relocating to Earth the promised group of actors with whom he worked in Moscow. Among them were Evgenia Dodina and Alexander Demidov. Together they created a theater there, and it was a desperate leap into the unknown.

Evgenia Dodin – from Mogilev, Sasha Demidov – from Tashkent. Both came to Moscow and entered GITIS. She studied at the first and last year of Anatoly Efros, with whom the workshop was led by Anatoly Vasiliev, he was with Andrei Goncharov. They worked together at the Theatre. Mayakovsky, where they met with Arya.

In 2006, Evgenia Dodina came after a twenty-year break at the MIFF to present the Israeli film Polussian History by Eitan Anner. She later starred in Alexander Mindadze’s Parket, and Sasha Demidov in the famous Israeli film Friends of Yana.

A virtuoso master of mixing styles is also considered to have performed after "Gesher" German violinist David Garrett. He performed in Baku with the orchestra of the Sofia Gubaidklin Center for Contemporary Music, easily moving from classics to pop music and rock, freely mixing them into a cocktail. On the one hand, he plays the Stradivarius violin, on the other – right on stage repairs a faulty device in the pocket of torn jeans, connecting his classic instrument with modern technology. On the stage comes a specialist in an elegant suit and before our eyes trying to eliminate the cause of the breakdown. While repair work is underway, David fills the pause with a solo performance without electricity, which is still enough, and the hall is recharged with his energy. Bach, Paganini, whom Garrett played in the movie, Rachmaninoff and the Beatles are strangely combined in one show. As the musician said in Baku, it is always important to find an opportunity to combine traditions with new ideas to see familiar things from a different angle.