Imagine Leningrad, where cracks in the asphalt lead to parallel worlds, and factory horns blend with the blues riffs of Robert Johnson, who sold his soul for a guitar solo. This is the world of Gena — a young dreamer in a Gautier jacket, whose life crumbles like an old portrait of Lenin in the Petrogradskaya metro station. After a quarrel with Natasha, he flees through the labyrinthine city: past the drunks by the poplars and the "electric spiders" of streetlights — until he finds himself in the canteen of the "Danger Signal" factory. Here, among sticky oilcloths and the fumes of papirosy, a meeting awaits him with Meph. Meph, balancing between the roles of devil and jester, offers Gena a deal. Absurdity here is the language spoken by walls layered with time, a stray poodle asking a mute question, and even a glass of water turning into Georgian chacha.
This is a story about how chance rules life, and the city becomes a stage for a performance where reality shatters into fragments: suddenly Gena is no longer running but swimming through the crowd, suddenly a table levitates, and from a window comes "La Gatta" by Gino Paoli — the soundtrack to a morning where only wet asphalt remains and the question: was it a dream accompanied by factory horns, or a blues parable about a generation stuck between the past and myth?
Why you should see this:
If you're ready to lose your footing in the familiar to find poetry in the cracks of reality — this reading is for you. Here, text comes alive in the screech of metro doors, in the whisper of actors and artists catching your eye like a hook, in the clink of broken glasses and the silence after rain. This is not a reading — it is a ritual. Come if you want to hear the heartbeat of a city where the ghosts of Shpalikov still wander along Kamennoostrovsky Prospekt, and a deal with the devil smells of boiled carrots and pickled milk caps.
The play by Alexander Tsikarishvili will be read by actor and musician Pyotr Skvortsov (actor at the Praktika Theater, Inside Theater, Meyerhold Center, known for his leading role in the film The Student) accompanied by a live experimental sound performance by Pyotr Skvortsov, Alexander Tsikarishvili.
