The First Studio of the Vakhtangov theatre.

The premiere held on 2013. 03. 14

His contemporaries used to call him the father of comedy. And they were right. Works by Aristophanes not only survived, but also initiated the genre in no way inferior to the tragedy by its complexity. Only 11 of the 44 plays survived, but among them there is one that justifiably takes a special place. This is “The Birds”, which was staged in 414 BC. It was in “The Birds” that the indomitable talent of Aristophanes gained its power, strength and depth, and made all future generations admire the boundless courage, elegant sarcasm, wit, imagination of a playwright, and one of the rare talents of an individual – the habit of calling a spade a spade.

An appeal of the modern theater to the play “The Birds” requires from the director not only artistic, but also civil courage. Aristophanes is impossible without it. And here it is, a new performance on the stage of the First Studio of the Vakhtangov Theatre, aiming to achieve this goal. It means, that it is filled with irony, drama and indomitable nature of performing, not even for a moment lets one forget about the fact that it is happening in a theater.

“The Birds” directed by a young director Mikhail Milkis and Nina Vasenina as a costume designer, is a free fantasy on a subject of the comedies of Aristophanes, in which the author’s text, written before the common era, is closely intertwined with the historical facts of later times and witty dramatic improvisation. Here the world cataclysms of the European countries and dramatic moments of life of the Russian state are indissolubly related to each other. Here the musical and plastic solution of the performance is integrated in a strict set design in ethnic style.

The cast of “The Birds” consists of young actors of the First Studio of the Vakhtangov Theatre – Eldar Tramov, Pavel Popov, Vladimir logvinov, Yuri Polyak, Lada Churovskaya, Nino Kantariya, Daria Odinokina, Anastasia Lukyanova, Maxim Sevrinovskiy, Anastasia Aseeva and Andrey Zlobin.

Running time: 2 hours.

The play is recommended for audience older than 16 years (16 +).