“Some time ago I went through a surgery and learned how simply great and fantastic is to have a healthy body.”
WHO: Roman Zotov-Mikshin
WHAT: “Two Russian artists in exile reveal the cruelty of Soviet life with a good dose of dark humour. The award-winning Spitfire return to Edinburgh with a project influenced by the books of Nobel Prize laureate Svetlana Alexievich. Chilling jokes, the absurdity of the situation, and efforts at trivialisation are the key features of a production built on the testimonies of witnesses of wars, the Chernobyl disaster and the collapse of the USSR. Live cinema employing puppet animation and starring food, inspired by works of Jan Švankmajer, provides fitting stylisation.”
WHERE: ZOO Playground – Playground 1 (Venue 186)
WHEN: 17:45 (60 min)
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Is this your first time to Edinburgh?
Me as a performer here for the 1st time – 1st time ever in Scotland, but it is a 4th time for the Spitfire Company though. The company’s very first show at the Fringe, One Step Before the Fall, picked up a Herald Angel Award in 2013. The multi-genre project explored the motifs of struggle, exhaustion, signs of Parkinson’s and collapse. Two years later Spitfire earned a Total Theatre Award nomination for Antiwords, inspired by the works of Václav Havel. The company received the same nomination in 2017 for The Narrator, a delicate piece centred on the subject of the loss of a child. For their most recent Fringe appearance in 2019, Spitfire brought the rap musical Miss America, about a woman who falls in love with a city where she is an alien, namely the Scottish capital.
What are the big things you’ve learned since 2022 and have you absorbed any of the lessons yet?
How fragile the human body is. In this case my body. Some time ago I went through a surgery and learned how simply great and fantastic is to have a healthy body. I really felt that I can’t take it for granted. As well as anything else which is considered “casual”. I have always realised it, but only now I truly feel it with my whole body.
Tell us about your show.
The piece is produced by us, Spitfire Company.
Petr Bohac (an artistic director of the company) came with an idea to put the text of Svetlana Alexievich (Nobel price winner for literature) into specific setting – the kitchen. The place, where people meet and share the food, ideas, thoughts which are pitifully not often heard by many. In the Svankmajer’s poetic.
The piece was premiered in Prague 2019.
What should your audience see at the festivals after they’ve seen your show?
Shows in ZOO venues and Summerhall definitely. Their poetics and interpretation is very close to what we like and doing in The Last of the Soviets. Namely: Funeral by Ontroerend Goed, Fool’s Gold by Saskia Solomons or Elvis Died of Burgers by Blink Dance Theatre.
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