Orpheus and Eurydice

(Photo: Victor Bazhenov )

The new performance of the Youth Theater is aimed primarily at teenagers - high school students, 14-16 years old. They fill the hall. At one time, Jean Anouilh composed a modern version of the myth about Orpheus in the play “Eurydice” and usually interpreted this plot for himself as a story about the love of a pure, straightforward and uncompromising boy and a weak, vicious, but beautiful girl. The stage version of Anuya's play, newly modernized and shortened by Eduard Boyakov, runs for an hour and a half without the usual giggling and hooting of the teenage audience, but with obvious sympathy. The sad story of a one-day love between an unemployed guitarist, a shaven, tattooed jock Orpheus (Vladimir Epifantsev) and a young actress Eurydice (Ekaterina Volkova) takes place against the backdrop of huge screens, where sometimes footage of youth madness at rock concerts or a series of portraits of Eurydice are projected, as if from a photo studio. Actually, in this competent, but very average performance, only the central couple is interesting and, first of all, Vladimir Epifantsev, invited to the role of Orpheus, is Fomenko’s student, director and actor of the “Factory of Cardinal Art” created by him, who recently excited young minds with the parody-vampire performance “Romeo and Juliet." Epifantsev fills the essentially simple, straightforward role of Orpheus with such powerful vital force and acting charm that at the end of the performance, unusually for the Youth Theater, a line of fans with bouquets line up to the stage, dreaming of an autograph and even a kiss from Orpheus.