DMITRY VOLKOSTRELOV
Director and Performer
‘I am free’ is Pavel Priazhko’s play in 535 pictures with 13 captions, a crucial result of his search for new theatre form. In an attempt of presuming a shape of contemporary theatre, Priazhko, a director of Belorussian origin, steadily questioned all the must-have elements of classical theatre: conflict, happenings, dialogues, the protagonist and his direct speeches. Priazhko diminished the scope of a play to couple of sentences’ nutshell, although continued contradictingly utilize the essence of theatre as it is, together with its structure and spacetime core. ‘I am free’ is a far beyond play: rejecting the word as a necessary element of text, Priazhko rejects author’s presence in play’s fabric. Thus, wild and chaotic reality is left to speak for itself.
The production participated in numerous festivals: ‘Liubimovka’ festival (Moscow, 2012), ‘New Play’ festival (within ‘The Golden Mask’ National Theatre Award programme, 2012), ‘Theatre Confrontations’ festival in Lublin (Poland, 2012), ‘Baltic Circle’ festival in Helsinki (Finland, 2013), special programme of Krasnoyarsk Book Fair (Russia, 2013).