The staging of a text that resists the conventions of a narrative dramatic structure seeks drama in the fractures between the panellists themselves. Despite their divergent views on the world and its economic, political, environmental, religious, and philosophical realities, they remain preoccupied with, or attempt to make sense of, the polarity between East and West. Yet it soon becomes evident that the positions dictated by their professional identities, in terms of professional vocabulary and the opinions they are permitted to express, do not fully correspond to their personal convictions.

We thus become witnesses to a carefully maintained charade, observing individuals who gradually undermine and violate the very code of the conference itself. They slip into personal fears and, at times, make controversial, politically incorrect statements which, whilst we as viewers may understand them, we are also ashamed of.

At this moment in time when we are witnessing human lives and human rights being disregarded across much of the world, while force and power prevail; when the complacency of the Western world is sustained either by a retreat into religious traditionalism or by the cynicism of humanist rationalism; when inherited cultural baggage serves as a justification for xenophobia, racism, nationalism, and a deeply troubling sense of white superiority. It is precisely then that Vyrypaev, with remarkable restraint, begins to unravel the sense of guilt.

This driving force behind yet another benign conference, one which, ultimately, will have no direct impact whatsoever on the regimes of disadvantaged regions, may well lie in guilt and the clearing of one’s conscience.

What Vyrypaev does not convey through the words he so vividly shares with the panellists, he unfolds through the performance space of the event, where we are propelled into the very essence of the contemporary era. Perhaps this is a moment of reflection, though it is certainly not cathartic, but rather grotesque.

The production is built upon the premise of a theatrical event that exposes and articulates the hypocrisy of privileged, educated individuals and their frustration. For on this evening, they too become aware of these positions, while seeking the cause-and-effect relationship behind this attitude.

Due to the abundance of allusions, Vyrypaev’s text becomes a theatrical palimpsest that oscillates between the fictional and the real politics.

Nina Rajić Kranjac

Special thanks to Mina Eghbal, Javad Malek-Hosseini and Behrang Azhdari.
Recompositions of Jean Sibelius’s Violin Concerto in D minor, Op. 47, Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons and Macarena by Los del Río are used in the production.
Vocals on the recordings Nina Rajić Kranjac and Behrang Azhdari.