For teenagers and adults.

The play by Ksenia Dragunskaya deals with the feelings and status of teenage girls in a small Russian village where you can die of boredom and continuously repeated orders, telling you what you should and shouldn’t do. The play deals sensitively with this age—a teenage age. The age full of inner vibrations, ideas and questions, such as how to deal with the fact that we will turn into adults one day. What does it mean? It is a play about “them”, but also about “us”—the world of adults, parental, family and community relationships. Without exaggeration, its theme relates to all of us. Slovak theatre does not create special theatrical performances for this age group (for example, in France, the teenage audience is so respected that it has its own theatrical category called “jeune public”, distinctive by its specific themes and theatrical means). This seems to be a wise decision in the field of professional theatre.

One thing is certain, if theatre does not deal with the problems of teenagers, there is no reason for them to attend theatrical performances. They need artistic harmony or, in other words, a simple interest of art in all age categories equally. The staging of the play the Mysterious Lighthouse in the Puppet Theater at the Crossroads represents an important new step in the theatre’s dramaturgy. It is a test whether and if an imaginary door leading into the thirteenth chamber of the teenagers can be opened. We offer them to enter and come between us, to our life and to the world of theatre.

Iveta Škripková, dramaturg

Ksenia Dragunskaya (1965)

Ksenia Dragunskaya is a contemporary Russian author of the middle generation. She comes from a renowned literary family. Her father, Victor Dragunsky, was a popular soviet author of books for children and young people, which were translated into many world languages. Her older brother, Denis Dragunsky, is a publicist and writer.
The author studied script writing at the State Cinema Institute in Moscow and worked as an editor in film studios. Since 1994, when she made her debut with the text of The Apple Thief, she has been writing and publishing theatre plays.
She symmetrically dedicates her work to children and adults. The theme of growing up and the life of teenage girls and boys occupy a significant place in her work and she deals with these issues in her theatre plays, short stories and screenplays.

Short stories: Soup With a Cat, 2003; No Kissing!, 2007 (for a long time, these short stories from the school environment formed part of our shortlist of Dragunskaya’s works that were considered for the staging process); Medication for Obedience, 2014.
Theatre plays: All the Boys are Fools, 1996; Cucumbers and Other Desserts, 1999; Russules/Shipwreck (The Mysterious Lighthouse), 2003. The Red-Haired Play from 1998 is one of the essential texts dedicated to the theme of youth, in which the author deals with complex social issues. In 2000, the play was adapted and turned into a successful movie Я вам больше не верю/ I don’t believe you anymore (working title). Within this category, we could also place an autobiographical novel Misconception bike in which she intensively deals with the theme of childhood and growing up.
The author’s work is usually characterized by the words, such as fairytaleness, dreaminess, lyricism, irony, a particular type of (and also black) humour. These are the characteristics attributed to her work, regardless of the target group the work is aimed at.

“I am essentially a fairytale teller. Before I started to write theatre plays, I had been working for radio and writing fairytales for children.” (Ksenia Dragunskaya)

CREATIVE TEAM

Translation: Ivana Kupková
Dramaturgy: Iveta Škripková

Scenic design, costumes, puppets: Katarína Caková, guest artist

Music: Elia Moretti, guest artist

Direction: Júlia Rázusová a.h.
Starring: Ivana Kováčová, Marianna Mackurová, Andrej Polakovič, Alena Sušilová, Filip Štrba, Mária Ševčíková, guest artist

Music band: Dodo Šamaj

Ancillary services: Daniel Chlumecký, Marek Horváth

Produced by: The Studios of the Puppet Theater at the Crossroads under the responsibility of Terézia Krnáčová in collaboration with Katarína Caková and Katarína Mažáryová

Photo: Katarína Baranyai

Premiere: February 7, 2020
The production was created as part of The Year of Slovak Theatre 2020.

Supported using public funding by Slovak Arts Council.
Realised with the support of the Russian Centre of Science and Culture in Bratislava.
Supported by the Honorary Consulate of the Russian Federation in Banská Bystrica.