An unorthodox circus show staged by a Golden Mask-winning director retells "The Nutcracker" with high-tech special effects and rock music.
Posters around Moscow featuring a red-haired girl and the mysterious word "Krakatuk" have been intriguing passersby for some time. Next week, they'll get a chance to find out what it's all about -- as long as 1,500 seats are delivered in time.
Based on a darkly fantastic story by E.T.A. Hoffmann, "Krakatuk" is a theatrical show that combines high-tech special effects, circus numbers and music by a founder of the rock band Leningrad. Since opening two years ago in St. Petersburg, it has toured in France, Ukraine and the Russian provinces, but it has never played before in Moscow, where it is set to premiere next week.
The show takes its title from an element in Hoffmann's story "The Nutcracker and The Mouse King." In the story, the Krakatuk is a very hard nut that must be cracked to save a princess from a curse. The story was adapted and made less disturbing for Pyotr Tchaikovsky's ballet "The Nutcracker."
The Moscow premiere was originally intended for June 29, but the show's producer, Oleg Chesnokov, said in an interview Tuesday that it had been postponed to July 6. The problem was that a factory in St. Petersburg, which he didn't name, had failed to complete the audience seating in time.
Previously, the show has been staged in permanent circus buildings and stadiums. In Moscow, it will take place in a specially designed big top for the first time. The white tent has already been set up in Kolomenskoye park, close to the banks of the Moscow River.
On Tuesday morning, Chesnokov was talking to a Polish expert on big-top construction while workmen fitted out a beer tent and the leading lady sunbathed in a bikini. The producer seemed calm about the postponement, saying, "Our preparations are going very actively. The only thing is that we're a little delayed."
Although the show has been staged about 200 times, "we consider this to be the big premiere," Chesnokov said. The July opening will include "90 percent" of what the creators intended, he said, since the specially built tent allows for more aerial stunts and special effects. The other 10 percent will come in later shows, he added.
The show is directed by Andrei Moguchy, a Golden Mask-winning director known for his visually inventive productions, which have included street theater. He put together "Krakatuk" for its premiere in June 2004 at the circus in his native city of St. Petersburg, but he now takes more of a backseat role.
"I haven't seen the show for a year," Moguchy said by telephone Monday. He will come to Moscow to see the new staging, he said, but is now busy working for the Alexandrinsky Theater in St. Petersburg. Nevertheless, he described working on "Krakatuk" as a rewarding experience. "I took a lot away from it," he said.
Moguchy called the show "visual theater" inspired by European street theater of the 1990s. "You can't simply call it a circus," he said. The show is not exclusively for a young audience, he stressed: "We didn't do a show for children."
The director worked with a team of artists and musicians including Igor Vdovin, a founding member of Leningrad, and Oleg Gitarkin of the lounge band Nozh Dlya Frau Muller. Their music for the show is a modern interpretation of works by Tchaikovsky. It appeals to children, who aren't "burdened down with complexes," Moguchy said.
"Krakatuk" will play six days a week until mid-October, the show's producer said, adding that he wasn't worried about sharing the fate of several musicals in Moscow that failed to sustain a long run: "That doesn't scare me at all, because we have shown this production in many different cities and even other countries, and we've always had success."
The cast of 50 performers is led by Anastasia Zholudeva, a slim girl with fiery red curls who can now be seen on posters around the city. Wearing a bikini to combat the heat, she was sitting in the "backstage" area of the circus -- currently a collection of small huts and piled-up props.
After traveling to the casting from her native Krasnoturinsk in Sverdlovsk region, Zholudeva was chosen to play the lead role of a small girl called Masha. Since then, she has continued to play the role without a break. "We're waiting impatiently, we already want to start work," she said. "I'm very nervous, just like the first time.
She learned to be a trapeze artist and juggler in a circus studio in Krasnoturinsk, where she also did a little acting. "Krakatuk" is demanding because it requires a mixture of skills, she said. "A circus is a circus, a theater is a theater, an actor is an actor, but here you need to combine all that and present it to the audience."
"Krakatuk" opens Thurs. at 7 p.m. and will run daily except Mondays in Kolomenskoye park, located off Prospekt Andropova. Metro Kolomenskaya. For more information, see www.krakatuk.ru or the Theater listings.
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