Pinihin’s “Butterfly” in Minsk

Director Mikalai Pinihin staged Butterfly play at the Minsk TUZ Theater. Pinihin is a kind of director whom viewers trust. Minskers attend his performances with confidence that they will exit the theater not disappointed but inspired.

The drama amateurs have finally watched his new premier – Butterfly.

A colonel chokes with his tea and loses his voice. He asks for several times, but does not believe it. Private Kolja Ljabjodushkin from 5th Company turns into a girl. These are the impersonations the play begins with.

The soldier-turned-girl Ljabjodushkin, played by Hanna Hitryk, narrates what a genius feels like and that she cannot live without the theater. The colonel tries to make her back into a private. Viewers are laughing. But, impersonations do not end there. The colonel fails to return the private into formation. On the contrary, he himself wakes up. In a military unit club, the colonel and the private are playing Shakespeare in the night. They sew the costumes from the stage veil and making their coffee together.

But, let’s listen to the director himself.

“The play is about how one lively soul has inspired another soul, already dead, and made it live again. One soul has lit another one, has given away its light and died. This is a simple formula. The man, who has a religious consciousness, has brought light into the soul of another person, who said in the beginning of the play: “It is cold and empty there. And, there will be nothing after the grave.” But, in the end of the show he understands that soul does not die together with the body. And, this is already much,” Mikalai Pinihin said.

ERB’s FILE

Mikalai Pinihin is a Belarusian director, who has worked in the Russian city of St. Petersburg for 8 years. Serving at the Bolshoy Dramatic Theater there, he staged plays No13, Costumer, Ekaterina Ivanovna, ART, Talents and Fans and others. In Belarus, he attempted to found his own theater in early 1990s, but he was denied premises. Afterwards, he started an enterprise named Mikola Theater, which later ceased to exist. Among the most popular plays staged by him in Belarus are Tutejsyja, Idylija, ART and Symon-Musician.

The director says he has staged Butterfly specifically for actress Hanna Hitryk. Earlier, when he directed the play in St. Petersburg, the colonel’s character was in the forefront. The actress continues:

“All five hundred things that we do are indeed not important. It is important to live this life through honestly and frankly. And we need to remember that there are still new roles and many lives ahead of us. The man, in this case, the colonel has understood what this girl (the main character) wanted to tell him only after becoming old and having lost her.

This is a human drama. Somehow, we realize things only after something happens.”

“My play is by no means about the military. It is about the salvation of a human soul,” says playwright Piotr Hladzilin. “A utopian melodrama”, echo the Russian critics.

“One of the best plays in Minsk”, says those who watched the performance in the TUZ.

Unfortunately, Pinihin does not have his own theater in Minsk. Watch Butterfly at the Minsk TUZ Theater on February 6 and 8.

Photo by www.alpha-concert.com