|
 |
-The performances are provided with ENG and KOR subtitles.
Solange and Claire are two sisters serving as maids in the house of Madame. Envious of her beauty and wealth they reenact Madame, trying her dresses and jewellery on, imitating her manner to speak and move – and get carried away with their game: anonymously they cast aspersions on Monsieur, the lover of Madam, denouncing him to the police, and decide to kill the mistress, blaming all their misfortunes on this exalted woman, who had hardly ever notices them.
Roman Viktyuk staged the play following the wish of the playwright Jean Genet that all the roles ought to be performed by men and created a powerful theatre ritual investigating eternal mysteries of the human soul. The Maids as well as other works of the author raise the issues of love and crime, beauty and turpitude, individual freedom coming up against society, finally rejecting its conventionalities.
The Maids has been staged by Roman Viktyuk three times (1988, 1992 and 2006) and became one of the top examples of his unique theatre method and aesthetique. The performance is a synthesis of drama, choreography and music where every gesture, every turn of the body and every intonation amplify expressiveness of the image. The accuracy of the set, established in the style of Art Nouveau, the complicated make-up of the actors, referring to the theatre of kabuki, and the costumes that are underlining the expressiveness of the actors' bodies, – all add to the artistic perfection and symbolic meanings of The Maids.
As the name suggests, Roman Viktyuk Theatre is the author's theatre, the theatre of the director. The notion by itself appeared in the beginning of the 90s. In 1991 Viktyuk, who had been actively directing performances in different theatres of the USSR, Europe, and the USA, started his own company with a performance “M. Butterfly”, which proved to be a major happening in the theatre life, and not only within Russia. At the same time his show The Maids, which had already been acknowledged as a legendary production, was produced in a renewed edition, living out its famous second birth. In 1996 his theatre acquired the status of a state theatre and its own venue in Moscow, which is a prominent piece of constructivist architecture.
Roman Viktyuk has been gathering the actors for his theatre from all over the post -soviet space: and as the result he has a team, which is able to realize even the most incredible idea of the director. Roman Viktyuk invited stars of opera and ballet to perform in his shows. Forinstance, the leading role in the show “AntoniovonElba" was performed by the renowned opera singer Elena Obraztsova. There are actors engaged in the theatre’s company, who have come to Viktyuk right after their studies, who have been shaped under the influence of his non-classical method. The shows of Viktyuk- are rituals, embodiment of total theatre, where it is hard not to perceive the sacral meaningfulness of what is happening, where every gesture is inspired, every word–brings life. Viktyuk's dialogue with his audience takes place in the form of a spiritual language, language of intuition and imagination. His gloomy evocative expression tunefully coexists with the luminous, life affirming, partly even childish energetics of his productions. The actors in his theatre are the bearers of an inimitable organics, capable to work in a synthetic, anti-realistic, non-canonical theatre. They move in an unusual way, they speak in a hypnotizing manner, they exist differently on stage. There are 18 productions in the Theatre’s repertory now, among them there are shows of Viktyuk and his students. The Theatre also works as an ongoing laboratory inspiring a constant search for new theatrical, poetic and physical forms.
| Back to List |
