LOS ANGELES
17 October 2025 20:00
Harmony Gold Theater
SEATTLE
23 October 2025 20:00
Carco Theater
NEW YORK
24 October 2025 20:00
Tribeca Performing Arts Center
"Unbearably Long Hugs"
Europa is the birthplace of many playwrights. And although only one of them became a world phenomenon, both the 19th and 20th centuries in different eras brought to the shores of European literature people a keen sense of conflict, character, an irrational vision of the world, and an ear for time. The last (by date of writing) grandiose dramatic work was “Marble” by Brodsky. Then there is silence. The more complex, multi-layered the century became, the more violent and contradictory the flow of reality, the quieter it became.
Authors emerged, but their theater did not emerge. Vadim Levanov, the Durnenkov brothers, of course, Maxim Kurochkin at different times jumped out of the flow, shone with the silver scales of a new vision, but were never able to capture the state stage; Instead of taking “mail and telegraph”, they mastered the audience on the Internet.
Ivan Vyrypaev stands apart in all this. "Yes, I was luckier than others - my own theater, space for experimentation, productions on big stages". But he immediately, at the moment of his appearance, presented a vertical line. In the craft of a playwright - in contrast to the well-known illusory configuration of power - there is a logical vector. Because it transfers the text into the universe, it makes it the property of the world. In “Praktika” dramaturgy began to emerge without any bitter connection to national characteristics: it concerns not so much the inhabitants of the country and the capital, but the planet’s inhabitants. In the last century this was called “God-seeking.” In the current one - “search for meaning OFF”.
The alien messiah initiates four ordinary people into the secrets of nature: their joyless life lacks a certain “impulse” that is necessary for all living things. But (the alien continues) to earn heaven, you first need to go through hell. Charlie, a thirty-year-old New Yorker, discovers that his wife Monica had an abortion without her husband's knowledge, causes a scene, steals her money and flees to Berlin. Meanwhile, Emmy, Charlie's frivolous lover, cheats on him with a European tourist named Krystof and attempts suicide in front of him. In short, all four of them are in trouble, and the heroes are haunted by voices in their heads—more precisely, one voice that calls itself a creature from another galaxy. Now guess which domestic playwright came up with all this. Vyrypaev has said more than once that the meaning of his theater is not so much in the spoken words, but in the non-verbal contact of the viewer with the artist, with his true, unclouded human nature.
Vyrypaev once said: “...the purpose of art is education. Knowledge about yourself and the world. You answer internal questions not just intellectually, but sensually. You look at different things from different perspectives.” Today, after the premiere, it’s clear: in answering me, he formulated goals for himself.
THE PLAY “Unbearably Long Embrace” was written at the request of the Deutsches Theatre. At the Theater “Stasa Namina” was rehearsed for a whole year, and its premiere opened the anniversary season, and for several years the performance was a huge success. The author of the text and director is Ivan Vyrypaev, the composer (he is significant here) is Stas Namin, the production director is Stas Namin.
Ages 21+ (the performance contains profanity)
Duration: 2 hours