2023-10-27 11:42:00
When AX appears on the modest stage of the Kühlhaus Berlin, the space comes alive. And this is not just a speech cliche; inanimate objects in the hands of masters of the engineering theater literally take on life.
St. Petersburg theater AXE in Berlin
The floor oscillates – it has been turned into a swimming pool. The sudden movements of the artists raise waves on it. Flakes of foam fall from the ceiling and spread across the stage space like intelligent protoplasm. There is a fire burning on the stage and it is raining at the same time. Against this background, a strange metaphorical story plays out: three people are busy with hard and meaningless work, dragging long, uncomfortable boards back and forth, groaning and bending under their weight, and they strive to slip out and hit someone on the head. People pull out sabers and try to kill each other, their silhouettes effectively placed on plywood walls, on which at some point an image of Putin appears. In the end, people break their boards, deconstruct space, destroy walls and find freedom, which results in a disco that is crazy in terms of energy in foam, water and fire.
“The play “Dictatorship” forms a trilogy with our other two productions “Democracy” and “Utopia” and is dedicated to unfreedom in any of its manifestations. Metaphorically using space and objects that prevent a person from existing freely, we come to the conclusion that most of all they themselves prevent this people,” says AX Theater director Vadim Gololobov.
Anti-war speech: “War is a shame”
The AX Theater was founded in St. Petersburg in 1989 and by the early 2000s it had acquired cult status in the cultural capital. Organized by two artists – Pavel Semchenko and Maxim Isaev – the theater found its own platform, organized creative laboratories and, in addition to home performances in St. Petersburg and performances in Russia, was a regular participant in European independent festivals.
On February 27, 2022, Maxim Isaev, one of the founders of the AX Theater, director and actor, took the stage at the Moscow Taganka Theater with an anti-war speech. This happened after the performance of the play “The Tale of the Golden Cockerel” as part of the “Golden Mask” program.
“I would have spoken earlier,” says Maxim Isaev, “but the opportunity arose only on the 4th day of the war. It wasn’t scary. I was shocked by what was happening. It was impossible to sit and be silent. I drew a huge peace sign on my shirt, and I wrote on my back: “War is a shame.” And so I bowed and made a speech. I wasn’t worried about myself, but I kept thinking about the artists who were standing nearby and who might get into trouble because of this. The audience clapped.”
The creative team of the AX Theater also published their anti-war messages on social networks. After this the problems began. The director was hunted by the prosecutor’s office, the theater was required not to speak out publicly, to remove any anti-war appeals, and to remove “dubious” productions from the repertoire (including “Dictatorship”).
“Then we lost our site – the owners received a call from above. We realized that we would not live. And one after another, everyone gradually left. They left for nowhere, our status was unclear, there was no future,” says theater director Vadim Gololobov .
For almost a year, the theater was sheltered by one of the famous cultural figures in France. The artists and their families lived on the territory of his estate, organizing something like an art residence. A production was created there, which the artists call their main work in exile – the play “Icarus”, with which the AXE Theater is now touring throughout Europe and has already shown several times in Germany. This is the classic story of the inventor Daedalus, his son Icarus, escaping from the labyrinth of the Minotaur, transformed in the absurdist-symbolic style of AKHE using unique engineering structures.
“This is undoubtedly a story about us, about an escape from captivity,” says Maxim Isaev. “Only our story is more successful, we didn’t fly so close to the sun to burn,” adds Vadim Gololobov. Today the AX Theater is having a hard time. Having lost their audience, platform, resources, country, artists are again looking for their path.
“The war destroyed our usual life”
“It is difficult for a theater like ours to survive,” explains Maxim Isaev, “due to the language that we use in our work. It is incomprehensible to the French audience. A consumer culture has formed in the field of street theaters: if the audience does not watch this, then the producers will not “This is to buy. I don’t yet understand how we need to reformat in order to fit into this process. Previously, we constantly went to festivals – but this is a completely different audience.”
“The number of performances has decreased. We have never sat idle during the theater’s existence. And the war destroyed our usual life,” says AX Theater director Vadim Gololobov. “We are unlike anyone else, unique, that’s why we were invited to tour around the world. But in France there is now an insane number of street theaters, there is enormous competition. And we, with our rather brutal Russian approach, are not very clear and in demand there. The French have lost the habit of fantasizing, they need to explain everything in detail, our Aesopian language is incomprehensible to them. In difficult moments, there is a feeling that our time has passed.”
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