The director of the Chapiteau Show staged a techno performance with stand-up elements

Sergei Loban, who directed the films “Dust” and “The Tent Show,” which were impossible to get into during the Moscow International Film Festival, as well as “Mamon + Loban” with the participation of Pyotr Mamonov, suddenly disappeared from view. He stopped making films. And a decade later he reminded of himself with the same crazy New Year’s performances for children.

In 2019, he staged “Yolki at Petson and Findus” in Moscow, about which there were legends. Now in the House of Culture “GES-2” shows children a “show presentation of fictional stories of real inventions” called “The Case of Technology.”

It turned out that Sergei Loban has been living not in Moscow, but on the seashore for almost ten years. The range of his interests has changed. Yes, today it is impossible to imagine that such a crazy movie as he made would be shown somewhere or awarded at official festivals.

Sergey is a graduate of the Moscow Institute of Electronics and Mathematics. Perhaps that is why one of the heroes of the “Chapiteau Show” calls himself a Cyber ​​Wanderer. By the way, one of the actors of this film came to “A Case of Technology.” And on the theatrical project, costume and props designer Yulia Komynina and composer Zhan Polyakov, who wrote original works specifically for the performance, are working. They also created the cult film by Sergei Loban.

We can say that “The Case of Technology” is a specialized production for him: with a scientific accent, it is suitable for the “I want to know everything” column. Sergei himself talks about the humanistic component of the play, that it is about the difficulty of being human. In order to remain one, you constantly have to invent something. We do not live in an ideal world, but it is worth trying to at least somehow transform it, make it a little better. For Loban’s heroes, this is a matter of technique. According to the director’s plan, his characters defend their personal freedom, resist the laws of the Universe, nature, society, fate, and their bodily shell. They can’t change the world globally, but they can preserve themselves

They overlook “Prospect” – the central highway of GES-2, which not a single visitor can miss. This is an open space where you can sit on cushions right on the floor and steps of the amphitheater in front of a small stage filled with all sorts of things. On it is a mountain of out-of-print televisions, an antediluvian bed, an old-fashioned floor lamp, bookshelves with the inscription “Shop”. There are flat clouds hanging over this whole “thrift shop”. Instead of a theater backdrop, there are rusty garage doors from which participants in a techno show appear. Set designer Evgenia Rzheznikova studied with Dmitry Krymov. And his students were constantly inventing something using the simplest materials. Their artistic practice developed into performances. Stage artists created worlds in which they themselves became actors. Evgenia put all these skills into practice.

Each hero has a rich imagination, and he can imagine a lot, invent something, so that a modest setting will turn into something fantastic. Along with the characters, young viewers also engage their imagination. We all know the benefits of simple toys that stimulate a child’s imagination. The same principle applies here.

Bizarre devices appear on the stage that allow a person to fly, take shelter from bad weather, swim in a special way, and saturate the air with life-giving substances. Let’s say a Chinese woman, Chiu Zhi (she only has an exotic name, no external resemblance) lives in an industrial area of ​​China next to a processing plant. There is nothing to breathe there, the environment is polluted. The girl has no choice but to create an air biogenerator, which she will introduce to young viewers.

There is a submarine here that you put on your head. You can use it to take the subway and visit the cinema. There is Walter Pichter’s TV helmet, Ellis Kaps’ personal folding flying machine, and a backpack that does homework while its owner returns from school. And in another backpack, transparent like an aquarium, an exotic green plant grows. And these are not dummies, not props, although, of course, they are dummies and props, but at the same time they are the result of developments by knowledgeable people who have patents for inventions.

Snowdrift people in large white balls covering their torsos and heads move across the stage like somnambulists. Outlandish characters replace each other, but the action is heavily overloaded. 1 hour and 45 minutes without intermission is too much for a small viewer. For adults too.

.The authors position the performance as “something between a technical presentation, performance and a variety show with stand-up elements.” The host of the performance was stand-up comedian Mikhail Kostretsov. He is constantly at the microphone – introducing the audience to the characters, turning the bed into a ship. All you need is a stack of books. They can be laid in the form of a sail. The presenter asks questions to the audience, helps them find the correct answers on the appropriate website, talks about a typewriter for feet, perfumes that change their smell depending on the time of day, and pills for oblivion. He teaches how to make a cap out of a newspaper and make an appointment with the governor, and “make a normal phone out of a Chinese phone.” His lessons sometimes resemble anti-lessons, since he himself puts the emphasis incorrectly every now and then, irritating some very competent parents.

Well, in general, this is a big top show with songs about black marmalade and black TV, about the fact that there is not enough evil for everyone, about “love-carrots”, “la-la, poplars”, funny pictures are chaotic, excessive, unexpected, a little sad for those who are waiting for a new author’s cinematic statement from Sergei Loban.