Washington Premiere of Dybbuk by Prague-Based Theatre Company October 14, 2006

The Prague-based theater company Teatr Novogo Fronta will present Dybbuk at the Atlas Performing Arts Center in the newly finished Lang Theater, located at 1333 H Street, NE, Washington, DC 20002. This is their WASHINGTON DEBUT, and the performance runs for one night only on October 14, 2006 at 8 pm! To purchase tickets, go to www.atlasarts.org or call (202) 399–7993. Tickets are $25 for the general public and $20 for students.

The performance is a one-woman show by Irina Andreeva and runs approximately 60 minutes. Andreeva developed Dybbuk from a Yiddish legend where the dybbuk is a disembodied spirit possessing a living body. In her rendition of the story, the dybbuk inhabits many female archetypes: an earth goddess, a red-wigged disco dancer, a comical old crone and more. Through her performance, she almost mystically changes costumes, and props such as a pile of leaves, a long cape, and short blackouts allow her to quickly transform into a new character. Andreeva considers one of the most essential elements in her script the idea that dybbuk portrays a disquieted mind that turns things upside down. “It’s a foreboding, the reverse side of everything, which doesn’t let us sleep or live quietly,” she said, adding that the piece does not follow a neat narrative line. “It’s a flow of associations, much more personal.”

The show recently debuted at the Philly Fringe Festival. Philadelphia Inquirer theater critic Howard Shapiro wrote, “I can’t recall seeing a dybbuk move with the tortured grace of Teatr Novogo Fronta’s fantastical one-woman dance…Andreeva is a master of restraint, and in her clear, calculated movements, she builds a tension that never lets up.”

Ales Janak and Irina Andreeva cofounded Teatr Novogo Fronta (TNF) in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1993, but soon relocated the physical theater company to Prague, Czech Republic. Their first play was Vremja Durak (The Time The Stupid, ‘94) and focused on what the future of Russia might hold. Since then, they have moved to Prague, Czech Republic, performing a variety of plays throughout Europe. Their early work resulted from studying the relationship between the actor’s body—the only material being used by the actor—and the performance space. Teatr Novogo Fronta constructs its performances from images on the frontier between mysticism and abstraction, circus art, and modern dance. With the focus on action rather than words, audience members do not have to speak Czech to understand the performance. TNF is purely physical theater. The group’s creativity and stage presentation range in scale and variety from having performed in street festivals, improvised sets and clubs, and in directed plays on classical theater stages across Europe.