FRIENDS

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Program 2024

FRIENDS

(18+)

18+

Performance gallery

The State Theatre of Nations

Director - Motoi Miura (Japan)

Composer – Keisuke Koyano (Japan)

Friends directed by Motoya Miura (Japan) is based on the play of the same name by the Japanese avant-garde author Kobo Abe. This writer is known to Russian readers for his works in prose - the novels Woman in the Dunes and Box Man.
The play Friends is written in the spirit of Western European absurdist theater. Its ethical paradox lies in the comic introduction - a company of strangers - a whole family of three generations - breaks into the apartment of a young man, who is quite happy with his life, and violently tries to save him from loneliness, one of the most pressing diseases of our time. The uninvited guests declare their best intentions and, with the ease typical of ultra-violence, penetrate into all areas of the hero’s life, despite his attempts to resist.

“I chose Kobo Abe’s play “Friends” because under such a gentle title quite an evil story reveals the inadequacy of modern society and the helplessness of a person who faces situations when “friends” enter without knocking and take away his strength, emotions, and, ultimately, life. The age of the Internet opens opportunities to intrude into someone’s life without asking, give unasked advice, dictate way of thinking or just offer obtrusive advertising. Our play tells how quickly modern society can deprive a person of his own identity and self-confidence,” says director Motoi Miura.

In Japan, the name of Motoi Miura became known thanks to his productions of Chekhov’s plays. Russian audience had a chance to see his productions of The Seagull, The Cherry Orchard, Uncle Vanya and Three Sisters as far back as in 2011, during the Moscow tour of the Chiten Theater headed by Motoi Miura. This time the director decided to turn to a play by a Japanese author, but he emphasizes that the topics of the play are relevant for modern society, regardless of geography.