18 white boxes Director Nikita Slavich was born in Samara, graduated from the RGISI master's program in St. Petersburg. Performance stages in unique genres. In his homeland, he first announced himself in 2018 as the director of the metro promenade sound department “Leaning” (16+). Usually she works in participatory theater methods, also known as participatory art. In such practices, the viewer need not be an observer but an actor. The project “This is for you” first appeared at the residence of the GES-2 House of Culture in Moscow, then at the Vyksa Festival, and has now reached Samara. It shouldn't be too difficult to move it to a new point, because in many ways this performance is made by the audience themselves. A year ago, at the Victoria Gallery's Contemporary Theater Week, Slavich presented the project “Why I don't sleep well.” At the final screening, the participants told the audience their real stories and experiences directly. In the play “This is for you,” the stories are not documentary in nature, but the participants play an equally large role. The structure was built by director and playwright Elina Petrova, Alexey Sinyaev and Dmitry Trundukov. The frame of the play is 18 white boxes, 18 floors, each floor associated with a separate theme. At first, the actors (Lyudmila Dlinnykh and Vladimir Ogarov) set the framework for the action: they, representatives of the older generation, leave important messages for their descendants and with them letters. from the owner of each item. In their stories, they form the rights that they pass on to future generations regarding this subject. After the script was shown, the actors left and never appeared again. Rules of the Game This performance largely takes place in the mind of the viewer and in the social interaction of the participants. By the way, they were left completely alone; Not only was there no artist, but there was also no organizer in the room. They say that there are programs where one of the audience takes on the role of manager, but in ours democracy still reigns. The participant's task is to approach the microphone in turn, open the next numbered box and read the monologue of the owner of the item. Sometimes you need to follow instructions in the text to place the stand or call someone else from the audience to help. In my case, I actually had to drink the liquid from the bottle. You can look at what's happening from many different angles, and from a communication psychology standpoint, it can be even more interesting than storytelling. The story as a final product in this case depends not only on the person composing the story, but also on who and how it is read. You can do this too theatrically or, on the contrary, “chew” part of the text, so that instead of a heartfelt story, the rest will receive a sound exercise in deriving meaning. But that's the point: this is theater for everyone. It's not that there's no hierarchy at all. Someone (and we know them) still laid down a pretty strict framework for the game and guided us through the text, numbers on the box, and comments in printed “letters.” But on the forum, everyone is equal and has the right to speak simply because they are here. It is interesting that in our case, repeated attempts to enter the “stage” were always prevented by other participants: they said, this is not the same, bring someone new . Although there seems to be no guidance on this. Everyone easily accepts the rules of the game. Sometimes it's even too easy. In one story, a seemingly narcissistic character asks an audience member to transfer his “ashes” from a simple urn to a beautiful one. Because the person reading this message is the one who will be reincarnated in another body in the future, and that person should not bother about his “beautiful fingers” (so they say). The volunteers were there without any pause. I immediately remember that in 2017 at Golden Mask they performed the performance “Inquiry” (16+) of the Khabarovsk Youth Theater based on the play by Peter Weiss. There, a lot was tied up in audience participation: they took turns reading excerpts from the play, which was written based on documents from the Nazi trials in Frankfurt. At one of the performances in Moscow, a riot broke out at the scene where tin bowls of water were given to the audience. First one person, and then several others, refused to accept discs from the actors, who at that time were clearly acting as camp managers. In general, when a beauty from the audience is ready to run to scatter the ashes of some unknown narcissistic man, you involuntarily do not think about the future or about what descendants will carry from the past. Iranian fans and games drill Two dozen stories in this performance – of a different nature, but with an obvious appeal of exotic characters for the ordinary Russian viewer. For example, in the open boxes there is an Iranian fan, the Buryat and Mongolia national game “Step Naadan”, the ashes of an Englishman, a headscarf from Singapore. Besides, there are touching stories about a man who is about to go blind and a person who cannot hear. Elina Petrova's handwriting is clearly visible in it. The playwright has been working in the field of inclusive theater for a long time and is able to document with precise accuracy the emotions of a person who perceives the world in an unusual way. In other stories there is no such authenticity. And we can discuss how necessary it is if the situation of unprepared reading of an unfamiliar text through a microphone looks clearly theatrical. The programs that take place on different days, as is clear from all that has been said, vary and depend on the composition of the participants. They say it's more interesting when there are fewer people in the room and they see and understand each other better. On our evening, the circle was wide and it was easy to sit as a simple observer – not everyone gets a box, after all. But in this case, part of the audience's experience is lost, and with it an important part of the performance. For example, in my piece (quite dramatic and dedicated to a controversial socio-medical issue), I suddenly caught myself asking the question: how do people of different ages hear this text? Not abstract audiences, but concrete people with whom we interacted in one way or another for an hour and a half. In general, you should go into such projects with a willingness to accept new things and be proactive rather than passive. New personal experience here is born not in observation but in communication.