The performance is equally built up by the work of stage designer Alexei Tregubov, who has come up with a whole parade of attractions. The action takes place on a classical circus arena, extended into the parterre and open to every eye, like the entire life of a man at the pinnacle of power. On the stage of the Alexandrinsky mirrors the real set of the Tsar's box, where the theater in the theater is played out (the Emperor and his son come to the performance of "The Inspector"). A live pony runs in a circle, driving a miniature, almost doll-like carriage. A fairground bear wanders in aristocratic chambers or in fairy-tale thickets, and the political course, like a flywheel of time, is turned back from a wooden chair - a throne, around which St. Petersburg and Moscow with lighting windows grow to the "Lilliputian" height of a snow-white model. Alexander III will take the Moscow Kremlin in his hands, already seeing the future of revolutionary Russia

The great merit of the artistic-director of the National Drama Theatre of Russia is that the center of the play is not decorative, but the deeply dramatic figures of two tsars - father and son. Ivan Volkov conveys with surprising depth and tragedy the fear and mortal terror of the "Tsar-liberator" who finds no escape from the vengeance of his people in the world. The scene of a nightmare on the eve of the fatal assassination attempt becomes one of the most poignant in the play. And the confused and desperate words: "What are you brothers doing?" - cut into the audience's memory like a sharp knife. But to match this role and the role of the future tsar Alexander the Third. Ivan Trus makes his hero not only texturally similar to the historical figure, but also reveals the most difficult path that the new tsar passes from confusion and deep doubt to the acquisition of determination and strength of a man who fully realized his duty to the Fatherland. In this sense, both of these roles form the core of the performance, representing the mainland of Russian psychological theater in this bright circus show

And yet the secret of the unconditional success of this performance, its magic, is that, despite the rigid directorial form, it remains an actor's play, and human stories and the will of the characters play no less significant role in it than global metaphors and plot. And the director clearly plays along with certain characters. Thus the last night before the murder of Alekandr II with his wife Katya is an example of high theatrical lyricism. And the arena is no longer perceived as the territory of a trick, but as a huge open space where it is impossible for a person, even a crowned one, to hide or even to find peace for a short while

The performance "One Eight Eight One" consists of components, the combination of which should seem impossible. Reliable historical events that directly rhyme with modernity, masquerade circus form, rock music, and the psychological play of the actors - Valery Fokin's direction seems to be specifically aimed at an unprecedented algebra of connecting unconnected layers. Well, and one more unknown - the question of the attitude of today's viewer, in 2022, to that historical drama

Valery Fokin, taking the action out of the classical stage box and into the circus arena, and decides the play as a circus performance. A succession of stunts, changing each other at a fast pace, a dashingly twisted historical plot. There is an entertainer, or chamber-lackey (Evgeny Kapitonov), who has a carpet clown (Daria Klimenko) tangling under his feet. The carriage is driven around in a circle by a live pony. There is a séance of the soothsayer Blavatsky (Ivan Suprun), who prophesies terrible disasters for Russia. There is a bear (though not a real one, played by Stepan Balakshin), and, finally, there is a river in which the Tsar catches live fish. The chandelier sparkles with multicolored lights, and in one of the royal boxes there is an orchestra. Fokine's much-loved "Meyerholdov's arapchata", silent servants of the proscenium in black, take the props out and carry them away, and the arena becomes a high society drawing room, the Emperor's study, a St. Petersburg street, a meeting room for ministers, or an exhibition of models. The work of stage designer Alexei Tregubov is flawless, and the music written for the performance by Vyacheslav Butusov is also good