Word: presnyakovs
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Pretty much everywhere is a long way from the Presnyakov brothers' hometown of Yekaterinburg deep in the Ural Mountains. But that's O.K. "A life on the go adds grist to our impression mill," says Oleg Presnyakov, 37, as he and his brother, Vladimir, 32, packed for a trip to Berlin to attend an opening of their 2003 play, Playing the Victim. It's a good thing the duo don't mind life on the road. Their increasing popularity as two of the world's hottest young playwrights has made itineraries like Moscow to Sydney via Tokyo, or Boston...
...1990s. But in 2002, a staff member of the British Council, an organization that promotes cultural exchanges, watched rehearsals for the brothers' play Terrorism in Moscow and recommended it to the Royal Court Theatre in London. In spring 2003, Terrorism debuted at the Royal Court, the Presnyakovs' first opening outside Russia. It was roundly applauded by critics - London's Guardian newspaper called it "a dazzling apocalyptic farce" that "suggests the novels of Kurt Vonnegut and Joseph Heller." Since then, the brothers have become the most frequently staged Russian playwrights after Anton Chekhov. "There isn't a day that their plays...
Today, the Presnyakov brothers' Yekaterinburg theater no longer exists, and their hometown doesn't seem to be aware of their world fame. The brothers shrug it off. They launched their theater, they say, when many people were traumatized by misguided reforms that suddenly wrenched their lives out of joint. The theater tried to help people cope with an uncertain future. These days, however, they see different problems on the rise. "This country is getting rigidly controlled again," Oleg says. "Once the brief spell of freedom shrinks, the state accepts only its controlled appointees, rather than those who spring up spontaneously...
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