The Hopeless Games

In 1984 the director Eugenie Kozlov founded in St. Petersburg his «Do-theatre», whose life in their homeland was intense but not easy, which made the main part of the troupe move away from the country. The work and life in Germany bought the company new partners and new successful projects.

“It is only the world of illusions and play where we have a possibility to eliminate the boundaries of reasonableness, agreements and the social constraint; to know the r, irrational side of our soul”, - believes the company’s artistic director Eugenie Koslov.

Their play FIVe indeed makes the viewers overstep these boundaries, giving them a chance of going together with the company members on a ‘utopian tour’ to discover the beauty and strength of the natural elements. Five people are struggling with rad parachutes – or, rather, with the wind, which is blowing up these huge domes, making for the people insurmountable obstacles and threatening them – what is it? Eternal struggle? Or just a way to nowhere? The elements been governing man since the beginning of the human existence. This law can­not be overcome. That is why the tour of the company’s five dancers will always be Utopian.

FIVe, a joint work of Do-Theatre and the renowned German set designer Daniel Weissrot, has been originally conceived as an installation, which gives this play its specific oppressiveness and specific language.

In the play ‘The Hopeless Games’ five travelers with a woman among them are waiting for the last train. Meeting in the desert of waiting, they are perfect strangers. The train does not come. On the dark stage the first of these people appears headless, the rest are hanging like costumes on hangers.

These creatures, featureless and incorporeal, frighten us, but also arouse our tenderness and humaneness.