Germany – The Abyss in Frankfurt

Do you remember your childhood? It was a time when the trees seemed huge, the parents were very young, and there was an endless life ahead. Then comes school, followed by teenage doubts, first serious questions, attempts to understand yourself and find your place in the world. And one day you find that the trees seem to remain the same, but you have already grown.

It is about this - about growing up, loneliness, finding yourself and going home - the guests from Chisinau spoke with the audience on the Frankfurt stage.

It all started with Match

The history of this meeting began last theatrical season at the Swedish Match festival in Stockholm. Theatrical groups from Frankfurt and Moldova met there.

Acquaintance quickly developed into that rare creative understanding, when one is just beginning a thought, and the other already knows how to continue it. And after the performance of the Moldovan theater, it became finally clear: not only the festival participants should see this production.

So the idea was born to bring to Frankfurt a play based on the novel by Jerome Salinger “The Catcher in the Rye”.

Chisinau State Youth Drama Theater named after Yuri Harmelin “From the Street of Roses” turned out to be, as befits a real theater, easy to climb – and accepted the invitation.

Theatre that begins in childhood

From the Street of Roses has existed in Chisinau since 1978. Once it began with a school theater circle, and eventually grew into a special author system, where future actors master the stage literally from childhood, studying in the city theater lyceum.

In Frankfurt came the director of the play Alexei Shtyrbul and the performer of the role of Holden Caulfield Arseny Prodan – representatives of this theater school. But the program was not limited to one show.

Alexey Shtyrbul conducted master classes on stage skills on the basis of Kulturhaus Kriftel. Participants were both beginners and more experienced actors of the theater studio "ISTOK". The meeting turned out to be not a formal lesson, but a live professional conversation - about the stage, acting freedom and the ability to exist honestly in front of the audience.

One on stage

And then there was the theater. On September 26, a single actor took the stage at Kinder- und Jugendtheater Frankfurt. An hour and a half is a young man in a funny red hat, with a suitcase in his hand and a whole heap of questions that are familiar to almost every person who once experienced his own sixteen.

Arseny Prodan plays Holden Caulfield, a hero who argues with the world, runs away from it, tries to understand adults, and at the same time desperately seeks himself.

Retelling Salinger's story here would be almost a crime against a future reader. Let's just say the main thing: this is the history of search. Myself. Go home. Meaning. It’s an opportunity not to lose that inner sense of freedom and happiness that was familiar to us as children – when trees seemed huge, and you were small, but somehow almost omnipotent.

The Frankfurt audience accepted the story. And, perhaps, it was here that the festival acquaintance finally turned into a real theatrical partnership.

To be continued

It seems that this meeting was only the first chapter. Theatrical Studio “ISTOK” for the new season has big plans. There are several premieres ahead, and one of them should be the result of the joint work of two directors - Anastasia Heidrich and Alexei Shtyrbul.

So the point set in September was actually an ellipsis. The theater season is just beginning. Ahead of new performances, meetings, rehearsals and trips. Of course, the trees will continue to grow. The main thing is that under their shadow we have a place to meet again. Maybe somewhere very close to that abyss - and necessarily in the rye.

Marina Kem

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