Marina Davydova
MUSEUM OF UNCOUNTED VOICES
Marina Davydova's “Museum” comes alive before our eyes, filled with the voices of bygone centuries, the voices of a vast empire once called the USSR, it problematizes all national myths, all ideologies and all attempts to cram the human personality into the narrow bed of historical discourses.
Language: English with German translation via headphones and Russian with German and English surtitles
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“There is only one map!” a loudspeaker proclaims. “No, there are many of them” – another voice immediately contradicts. In each of the halls of this fictional museum, very different versions of the same historical events are presented. And sometimes these different versions are offered within the same room: in the second chapter of this production the audience finds itself in the middle of a conflict between five former Soviet republics: Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia fling around irreconcilable interpretations of their shared history.
“I have always been interested in the performative potential of museum spaces,” says Davydova, “I imagined how their objects suddenly came to life, how the voices of former times echoed through the museum halls and argued with each other, and how visitors unwittingly became their interlocutors.”
The only actress in the play, either a random visitor to the museum or a ghost, is silent at first, she only occasionally carries out the voices' commands. It is only in the last fifth part that she suddenly finds her own voice. Her final monologue is a historiosophic confession of the author of the “Museum”, who has twice lost her homeland and is trying to deal with her country's past and her own past and present.
It is not abstract historical discourses or national myths, but only the experience of the individual, as the protagonist argues, that is the true measure of history.
“Marina Davydova makes the past self-reflectively, darkly and mercilessly alive. Visitors are part of the play, part of the scenery and part of the story. A ‘museum’ well worth visiting.” Eva Sager, Wiener Zeitung
Credits ›
Concept, Text, Direction: Marina Davydova
Stage Design: Zinovy Margolin
With: Marina Weis, Chulpan Khamatova
Voices: Odin Biron (Episode I EMPIRE), Jamal Ali, Luka Kalandadze, Igor Shugaleev, Gurgen Tsaturyan (Episode II NATIONS), Jamal Ali, Odin Biron, Marina Davydova, Boris Falikov, Luka Kalandadze, Alexey Kokhanov, Elizaveta Petrova, Farrukh Pirov, Igor Shugaleev, Gurgen Tsaturyan, Ekaterina Voronova (Episode IV PEOPLE)
Music: Vladimir Rannev
Technical Direction: Roman Streuselberger
Video: Oleg Mikhailov
Video Technician: Mikhail Ivanov
Lighting and Sound: Iurii Galkin
Stage Technicians: Bodo Hermann, César Martins
Translation: Sergei Ostrovsky, Sonia Ostrovsky (English), Yvonne Griesel (German) Production Manager, Assistant Director and Surtitles: Ekaterina Voronova
Choreography: Anna Abalikhina
Assistant Choreographers: Sonya Levin, Anna Abalikhina
Researcher: Mikhail Kaluzhsky
Set Builders: SC ART DECO SRL, Wiener Werkstätten
Props: Daria Artemova
Props Assistant: Vera Liulko
Design: Jürgen Fehrmann, Gea Gosse
Costumes: Marcus Barros Cardoso, Vera Liulko, Aleix Llusa Lopez
Technical Director Touring: Patrick Tucholski (HAU Hebbel am Ufer)
Production Manager and Tour Manager: Elisabeth Knauf (HAU Hebbel am Ufer)
Production ›
A work commissioned by HAU Hebbel am Ufer, Berlin. A production by HAU Hebbel am Ufer, Berlin and the Wiener Festwochen in co-production with Theater Freiburg.
Biographies ›
Marina Davydova is a theatre critic, theatre director, playwright and producer. She was a theatre critic for the newspaper ‘Izvestia’ and Editor-in-Chief of the magazine ‘TEATR’ until March 2022. Davydova is also a regular contributor to ‘Theater heute’. She has received numerous prizes, including the Stanislavsky Prize for Best Book Publication in 2005. In 1998 Davydova was one of the initiators of the NET (New European Theatre) Festival in Moscow, and served as its Artistic Director for 23 years. Her productions ‘Eternal Russia’, commissioned by the HAU Hebbel am Ufer, and ‘Checkpoint Woodstock’, as well as her play ‘Trance’ first premiered in Germany and then toured internationally. ‘Eternal Russia’ was awarded a Special Prize by the international jury at the BITEF Theatre Festival in Belgrade in 2018. In 2016 Davydova was Curator of the theatre programme for the Wiener Festwochen and she recently took over as Drama Director of the Salzburg Festival with effect from 2024. As an open opponent of Russia’s war against Ukraine she was forced to leave Russia. Since then, she has lived in Berlin.
Chulpan Khamatova studied Acting in Moscow and London. From 1998 to 2022 she was employed full-time at Moscow’s Sovremennik Theatre, and made guest appearances at the Theatre of Nations and the Gogol Center. She has worked with Alvis Hermanis, Thomas Ostermeier, Robert Lepage, Rimas Tuminas, Kirill Serebrennikov and others. Her film work brought her into contact with the German film industry. Since 1999 she has worked in film and tv, including in Germany. Her most succesful film internationally has been ‘Good Bye, Lenin!’ (2003). To date Khamatova has played over 70 roles in Russian and European films. Since 2005 she has been an active campaigner in support of children with oncological and hematological diseases, and co-founded the charity Podari Zhizn in 2006. It has since treated more than 73,000 children. In February 2022 she signed a petition against Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine. She was forced to leave Russia shortly afterwards. Since then, she has lived in Latvia, where she works as an actor with the New Riga Theatre.