Five actors and dramaturg Julian Blaue from Dramatikkens Hus will have an open reading of the play Boys in Zinc. After the reading there will be a conversation with the author of the play, Marius Ivaskevicius, in the foyer. Welcome!
Boys in Zinc refers to a zinc-plated coffin in which the fallen soldiers were transported home to the Soviet Union as “cargo 200”. The play was written in 2018 with a plan that it will be staged in Moscow by Russian movie director Aleksandr Sokurov.
When the play was finished, I got news that Aleksandr Sokurov left Russia after knowing that he can be arrested there. Later he returned to Russia, but no longer had the braveness to stage such an anti-war play. Together with Svetlana Alexievich, who loved the play and said it is the best ever theatrical adaptation of her works, we started to look for other directors and theatres. In the season of 2022–23 four theatres in different countries were preparing to do this play: Moscow, Kiew, Vilnius and Reykjavik. But then the war started and all those plans collapsed.
– Marius Ivaskevicius
Marius Ivaškevičius is a prose writer, playwright, and film director. His novels have been published in Lithuania, Poland, Germany, Russia, and Latvia. Plays have been staged in Lithuania, Russia, Italy, France, Poland, Finland, Latvia, Estonia, New Zealand, Czech Republic, and Romania by directors Kirill Serebrennikov, Oskaras Korshunovas, Rimas Tuminas, Mindaugas Karbauskis, Arpad Shilling, Aleksandar Popovski, and others. Four plays received the Best Lithuanian Play award, and one the “Golden Mask” award as the best play in Russia (2017).
Julian Blaue is a German-Norwegian performance artist, director, and dramaturg. He has performed at prestigious venues including Staatsoper Berlin, Volksbühne Berlin, Det Norske Teatret, and the Rio Art Museum. Blaue is part of the duo Blaue & Poppy (upcoming: Iggy – Reality Strikes Back and The Ones Who Don’t Exist at Rosendal Teater and Østfold Internasjonale Teater). He is currently working as a dramaturg and workshop leader at Dramatikkens Hus in Oslo.