From 16th June until 10th July 2005 Theater der Welt 2005 in Stuttgart will present an all-embracing insight into international theatre with 30 theatre, dance, music and puppet theatre productions. The programme will focus on three productions from Russia as well as guest performances and co-productions from Australia, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Great Britain, India, Japan, Canada, Mali, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Austria, Sweden, Switzerland, South Africa, Turkey, Hungary and the USA.With the latest works by Eimuntas Nekrosius, Dimitry Chernyakov and Ivan Viripayev there are three productions on the programme which - each in a different and exemplary way -reflect the cultural breaks and upheavals of a country which is torn between tradition and modernity.

The biography of Eimuntas Nekrosius, a director from Lithuania acclaimed by the international theatre critics, joins the cultural fractures of eastern Europe together. Born in 1952 in what at the time was a part-republic of the USSR, Nekrosius was trained as a director at a Moscow elite institute. In the Soviet Union the artists from the Baltic countries were oriented to western Europe. When in the mid-eighties particularly the younger generation in the Baltic states openly rebelled against the dominance of the Russian culture, Nekrosius became the protagonist of the young, Lithuanian national theatre through his productions in the Lithuanian language and with Lithuanian actors and actresses. With Czechovs "Kirschgarten" his first production in Russia with the renowned ensemble of the Stanslawsky Foundation he straightaway landed an award-winning masterpiece. (International première on 19th June 2005 in the Schauspielhaus Staatstheater (State Theatre) Stuttgart. Further performances on 20th and 21st June, 2005).

While the rejection of the Soviet Union particularly left its mark on Nekrosius, Dimitry Chernyakov belongs to a generation which experienced the old regime during its declining phase as well as during its collapse. His production of Marivaux' "The Double Inconstancy", which he staged at the Globus Theatre in Novosibirsk in 2004, in a subtitle he also calls it a "post-communist tragicomedy". The director drives his outstanding acting ensemble into a highly political game far above the psychological delicacy of the script. Moments of extreme intimacy are exposed to an almost aggressive public through an equally simple as well as sensitive trick. Last year Chernyakov was awarded the first prize for this production at the Moscow Festival Golden Mask in the category "Best Studio Play". (International première on 25th June, 2005 in the Studio Theatre of the Staatstheater Stuttgart. Further performances 26th - 29th June, 2005).

Ivan Viripayev was born a generation later in 1974 and his picture of Russian reality on the edge of chaos and collapse is correspondingly dismal but at the same time frank. From texts, dialogues, commentaries and quotations of his lively correspondence with a young patient in a psychiatric clinic the playwright, actor and director develops his Genesis No. 2 via a radically different view of the world and its lack of existential certainties. The provocative bible researchers around Viripayev tell the glad tidings out of a Sodom and Gomorrha of our day with poetic dialogues, brief dramatic scenes, merry uncouth songs and rousing Bajan music. (International première on 7th July, 2005 in the studio theatre of the Staatstheater Stuttgart. Further performances on 8th and 9th July, 2005). Within the focus on Russia a discussion is planned on the contemporary theatre in post-communist Russia.

16th June - 10th July, 2005 in Stuttgart. http://www.theaterderwelt.de / For tickets phone: 0711 20 20 90