On 14 November 2020, the piece “Not in Vain” was performed on the stage of the Hermitage Theatre.
The inclusive performance is the result of a project by the Saint Petersburg-based PRO ARTE foundation – “Special Theatre, a theatrical laboratory for blind and visually impaired people” – and is closely bound up with the Hermitage and its collection.
Of the 22 participants in the project, ten are invalids due to visual impairment, two are both blind and deaf, while ten are professionals without any special needs.
The production was devoted to the phenomenon of vision, the themes of perception and memory, language and communication. The basis was the documentary stories of the non-seeing performers of the Special Theatre, recollections, observations, reflections on their own lives. The literary sources were Goethe’s study A Theory of Colours and Olga Sedakova’s essay Travelling with Eyes Closed. Letters about Rembrandt”. The production had its premiere in November 2018 on the New Stage of the Alexandrinsky Theatre.
During the preparations for the production, the participants in the laboratory spent time in the Hermitage and made their own journey to Rembrandt. Impressions of the museum, reflections on how a person who has never seen a picture perceives painting and whether it is possible to describe a picture to someone else went into the piece.
In the production, there are no roles or individual statements, and there is a deliberate policy of not accentuating which of the Special Theatre’s actors can see and who cannot. All the personal stories are woven into the general fabric of the piece, where the important thing is not differentiation, but collective exploration of the phenomenon of sight.
The artistic director of the laboratory is Boris Pavlovich, a winner of the Golden Mask national prize.
The director and teacher of acting skills is Dmitry Krestyankin.
The dramatist is Elina Petrova.
The production designer is Alexander Mokhov.
The musical director is Roman Stolyar.
The performance took place with the support of Saint Petersburg’s Culture Committee.
