Orlando Furioso

Formalny Theater is a child of perestroika and was born in 1989. At the height of this informal movement, a recent graduate of the Leningrad Institute of Culture named Andrei Moguchy organizes the Formal Theater.

So, what became the ideal form of exploration for Moguchy? Dependence of the the­ater on the type of space, which cannot help but change the content of the produc­tion. This is why, through shocking, the group announced its presence dynamically by maxing forays into non-theatrical venues: cafes, bars, nightclubs. After this, the theater was ready to produce Hamlet-Machine based on the play by Heiner Mueller. The premiere took place in Berlin in 1993.

For all his apparent radicalism, Andrei Moguchy does not see the traditional theater in opposition to the avantgarde, but rather looks for their common points. The the­ater’s repertoire includes productions of Russian classics such as Petersburg based on the novel by A. Bely, and People, Lions, Eagles and partridges based on the works of A. Chekhov. The group’s introduction to the street turned out to be a logical step.

Viewers of Orlando Furioso are drawn into a game, into a world of fantasy and reality. A fire breathing dragon flies through the sky. Fairies flit by, spreading fireworks. Horsemen gallop past. A knight takes flight. A king and a queen appear on the podium, moving as primitive dolls, as if coming to life from a medieval fresco. They act out a story about how their own craftiness entraps them. A duel between women warriors is a strange dance of huge figures in shiny metal armor. When they remove their helmets, scaring the enemy, they turn into fairies. We see stories of scheming and love. Ariosto’s text is heard in the language of the original, Italian, to convey its beauty to the maximum. In the end, a lonely king-warrior is left pacing in a terrible castle as it burns spellbindingly before our eyes.