An-der-sen

Nowhere in the world is Hans Christian Andersen so popular as in Russia. Adults and children know practically all his fairy tales and characters.

The idea to create a performance devoted to Andersen did not by chance come from the organizers of the Chekhov International Theatre Festival. In 2005 the world celebrates the anniversary of the great storyteller. The Chekhov Festival has a wide-ranging experience in the creation of joint productions with the foreign organizations. The Foundation “Hans Christian Andersen 2005" acts as partner for this project.

This time the Festival has decided to enlist the young generation of Russian theatre, who has already proven itself and won the recognition of the theatre public.

The playwright Ksenia Dragunskaya and the. director Olga Subbotina belong to leaders of the generation of thirty-year-olds. Their new project 'An-der-sen” is yet another collaboration between the two.

The production about the great Danish storyteller was born in the direct dialogue between director and playwright. The writer’s biography and his work have formed the basis for the productions creators’ reflection on life’s influence on literature and vice versa. The autobiography used as

the backbone of the production, Andersen's autobiography Life as a Fairy­tale, has, in many respects, determined the authors' approach to this production, trying to immerse themselves into the spirit of the fairy tales by the great Danish writer, and to recreate on stage the world seen through his eyes. Hence the genre of the play is defined as “a Fairy-Play about life and fairy tale”.

Olga Subbotina says that to understand means partly to separate, which is expressed in the title that is not accidentally divided into syllables 'An-der-sen” to emphasize the aspiration of the production team to solve a riddle of the genius, moving from the simple to the most complex. To comprehend the phenomenon of a writer who created literary works known to everyone in all generations over one and a half centuries. Along with scenes from the life of the great storyteller - his environment, his relatives, the moves to Copenhagen, the entrance into Danish society - the play includes fragments from Andersen's fairy tales, such as the well-known ’Snow Queen' and a little known tales, including his 'Ina Thousand Years'. In the latter he anticipated air transport from America to Europe, the tunnel under the English Channel.

Life prompts literature, and literature interferes with life. These crossovers between fiction and reality endow the production with a special poetic atmosphere.