The Snow Queen, Andersen
Пермский академический Театр-Театр, Perm, Russia
„My poor and foolish Kai! You already forgot everything. Let's go home!“
Perm Teatr-Teatr offers its youngest spectators the opportunity not only to watch their heroes from the auditorium, but also to accompany them side by side on a great new adventure. Together with Gerda, the audience sets out to free the kidnapped Kai from the frosty embrace of the cold-hearted Snow Queen by reminding him of what really gives value to life, namely not money and power, but friendship and love.
The journey leads the children through all floors of the theatre, through dark cellars, an icy labyrinth, a forgotten robber's hut, through the humid heat of the jungle up to a draughty mountain top and further and further to the far North. Our quest is a unique opportunity for the young theatre goers to become part of Andersen's fairy tale themselves and change its course through their own actions.
Hans Christian Andersen's Snow Queen tells the story of the little girl Gerda, fighting against the powerful empress of ice and snow, from whose clutches she tries to free her friend Kai. Yet this perhaps most famous story of the Danish author is more than just an exciting road trip, leading the young protagonist further and further into the frosty, dark North. Andersen's Snow Queen is a story about the end of childhood, about unconditional friendship and the rebellion of a naive, pure heart against a cynically cold, calculating and corrupted environment.
On her way to the North Pole, Gerda repeatedly finds herself confronted with her own fears, which she has to overcome in order to get one step closer to her goal. Almost all the characters she encounters try to keep her back for their own advantage and prevent her from continuing her search. Be it out of comfort, for financial benefit, or simply out of fear. But in the end Gerda succeeds again and again in softening the hearts of those who first aim to block her way.
What distinguishes Gerda from all other characters is her unconditional, selfless idealism and her childlike, unpretentious naivety. Only by means of these attributes is she able to oppose the Snow Queen and her cold but hollow materialism, which seeks to reduce people and things to their alleged utility value only. In her genuine belief that the world can be better than it maybe is now, and that it is not enough to simply close one's eyes in face of evil, Gerda reminds us of our own lost dreams of a better world, which we as adults sacrifice every day, giving in to our so called sense of reality.
starring: Natalya Makarova, Anna Syrchikova, Olga Pudova, Ekaterina Elokhova, Alisa Sanarova, Anna Ogoretseva, Kristina Perina, Ekaterina Vozhakova, Ekaterina Mudraya, Maria Korkodinova, Zakhar Prazdnikov, Kirill Pyatkin, Sergey Shishkin, Artem Shkolnik, Oleg Vykhodov, Valentin Belousov, Kristina Bazhenova, Alexandra Krizskaya, Mikhail Merkushev, Danila Averin, Sergey Detkov, Alexander Goncharuk, Alexey Karakulov, Maria Polygalova, Tatyana Sineva, Dmitry Vasev, Alexey Deryagin, Ivan Vilhov, Alisa Erbis, Alena Terёkhina, Semen Burnyshev, Alexander Sizikov, Peter Maramzin, Andrey Dyuzhenkov , Dmitry Zakharov, Daria Egorova, Dmitry Kurochkin, Mark Bukin, Sevastyan Dadidov, Mikhail Palkin, Lydia Anikeeva, Albert Makarov, Sergey Semerikov
stage and costume design: Katerina Nikitina
translation: Ekaterina Raykova-Merz