A girl loves a bad guy, but marries his brother, a good guy. In traditional theatre such an outset would lead to a fratricidal drama, and in the play by Pavel Prjazhko the characters lie, are unfaithful, then shamelessly visit each other, and at the denouement say that life is grand (has gone right). Pavel Prjazhko demonstrates that a modern character is not fit for classical theatrical forms.
It was four years ago that Prjazhko appeared on the Russian stage and immediately became the main newsmaker of the new drama.
His plays seem to copy reality and criticize the present day life, but actually the goals set by Prjazhko are quite different. He studies the theatre, puts it to the test. He experiments with the plot, action, dialogue. In each of his new plays he provokes the theatre to break its own laws. Young directors are fond of his texts, therefore Prjazhko has a possibility of experimenting literally on stage. Eventually, also the head of Teatr.doc and one of the new drama ideologists, Michael Ugarov, took a great interest in Prjazhko’s work and decided that the only form in which Prjazhko’s characters would feel organic was reading, work-in-progress. The underdeveloped characters live their unique, one and only life as if it were no more than a rehearsal, and the first night were still ahead.

Elena Kovalskaya