The Pskov Drama Theater turns to the modern literature of China, to the novel by Mo Yan, the outstanding Chinese novelist of our time, Nobel Prize winner in Literature.
The action of the novel "Frogs", as well as most of Mo Yan's works, takes place in Gaomi County, Shandong Province, and for more than fifty years - from the 1950s to the beginning of the XXI century. Wan Xin, an unusually gifted midwife, becomes a ruthless fighter for birth control. Where once there was the first cry of a newborn baby, now there are the voices of unhappy mothers forced to terminate their pregnancies. Epochs and political agendas change, and against this backdrop, people's fates are bizarrely refracted and even broken. Along with the torment of conscience, old Wang Xin is haunted by hordes of devilish frogs, into which hundreds of embryos she has killed have turned. Or maybe it's just fiction, scenes from a play being written by an ambitious playwright, Kedou, who dreams of the fame of Jean-Paul Sartre ...
Mo Yan (born February 17, 1955, real name Guan Moye) is an outstanding Chinese writer, a living classic. Deputy Chairman of the Writers' Union of the People's Republic of China. He was a military political officer, retired in 1997 and became an editor. Author of many novels and novellas, including: "People's Music", "Red Gaoliang", "Sandalwood Torture", "Thirteen Steps", "Wine Country", "Big Chest, Wide Ass", "Change", "Forty-One Clappers", "Tired of Being Born and Dying". In connection with Mo Yan, many speak of a special literary aesthetic of "hallucinatory realism". The novel Frogs was published in 2009, and in 2011 was awarded the Mao Dun Literary Prize, the most prestigious literary prize in the PRC. The novel deals with the "kinks on the ground" during birth control in the 1970s and 1980s, and - not least - the mechanisms of interaction between human conscience and artistic creation.
In December 2023, the Pskov Drama Theater held a unique festival dedicated to the work of the writer Mo Yan - "Mo Yan Fest".
The play was directed by Nikita Kobelev, chief director of the Alexandrinsky Theater. Kobelev's plays form a significant part of the repertoire of the Mayakovsky Theater in Moscow, and are also performed at the Alexandrinsky Theater, Chekhov Moscow Art Theater, Theater of Nations, Theater of Satire and others. They have repeatedly won prizes at prestigious theater festivals, including being included in the long-list of the Golden Mask National Theater Award. Nikita Kobelev's play "The Creature" (Alexandrinsky Theatre) in 2022 was recognized as the best in Russia, according to the "Star of the Theater" award, the results of which are determined by audience voting.
Scenography and costumes were created by the famous theater artist Nana Abdrashitova. Plays designed by the artist have been staged at the Bronnaya Theater, the Sovremennik Theater, the Theater of Nations, the Center for Dramaturgy and Directing, the Tovstonogov BDT, the Krasny Fakel Theater in Novosibirsk, the Lensoviet Theater and many others. In "Frogs" Abdrashitova used many authentic details of material culture of China of different epochs.
The staging was written especially for the play by Andrei Pronin, the art director of the Pskov Drama Theater, who set himself the task of not only "retelling the story", but also to convey on stage the specific literary structure of Mo Yan, modulating from historical chronicle to phantasmagoria, unashamedly venturing into mesalliances with Shakespeare, Cervantes, Brecht, Marquez and Sartre.
Alexei Rodionov (St. Petersburg), First Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Oriental Studies of St. Petersburg State University, PhD in Philology, and Ekaterina Morozova (Moscow), Associate Professor of the Faculty of Theater Studies of the Russian Academy of Theatre Arts, PhD in Art History, acted as scientific advisors for the production.
The play "Frogs" is an eight-time nominee of the National Theater Award of Russia "Golden Mask" (2023): "Best Performance in Drama. Big Form"; "Best Director" (Nikita Kobelev); "Best Actress" (Linda Akhmetzyanova); "Best Actor" (Sergei Skobelev); "Best Supporting Actor" (Denis Kugai); "Best Designer" (Nana Abdrashitova); "Best Costume Designer" (Nana Abdrashitova); "Best Lighting Designer" (Igor Fomin).
The performance "Frogs" opened the XXXIII International Theater Festival "Baltic House" in 2023 (St. Petersburg).
Original author: Mo Yan (China). The performance is authorized by the Chinese Literary Authors' Society.
