Lilican theater

The Lilikanische Theater (also: the Lilikanische Royal Theater for drama, opera and ballet) is a miniature theater for more than five spectators. It is a project of the "Tenj" theater (Russian: shadow theater). The founders of the theater are Maiya Krasnopolskaya and Ilya Epelbaum. The Lilican Theater was founded in 1993 in Moscow during perestroika , it was the first non-state theater in Russia. Since 2017, with the support of the Puppentheaterkunstschutzverein eV, a branch (an exact copy of the original stage) has been opened in Thuringia not far from the city of Weimar.

The Lilican Puppet Theater

history

At the beginning of the 1990s, the puppet show "Guest performances of the Great Royal Academic Lilican Folk Theater in Russia" took place in Moscow . Maiya Krasnopolskaya and Ilya Epelbaum came up with the legend according to which the tiny people of Lilicans (the average size of a Lilican is 6 cm) came from the remote island of Molterra to Moscow with guest performances from their National Theater. A special small room was set up in the “Tjenj” theater for this purpose, in which a model of the Lilican theater was set up. It is a man-high doll's house, which represents a pompous miniature theater. It has been worked out down to the smallest detail: on the facade there are a number of columns with portico , the gable is crowned with a four-horse carriage , the walls are decorated with rich stucco , and small game plans hang next to the tiny theater door. Inside the theater is no less splendid: a huge crystal chandelier , velvet boxes , balconies, candlesticks, the tiny orchestra plays in front of the curtain and hundreds of puppet spectators wait for the actors to appear on the stage and the play to begin.

Since the size of the Lilican Theater is not intended for the visit of the "tall" people, the spectators take a seat outside the building to look at the stage and the auditorium through the small windows. A play can see a maximum of 5 spectators. Headphones and binoculars are handed out to the audience - everything like in a real theater. If the play is performed in "Lilican", the headphones will be interpreted simultaneously.

Legend of the Lilicans

As legend has it, Lilicans are "a little-known people from the remote island of Malterra". The life of the Lilicans is very different from ordinary life. The main difference is that it is culture, and nothing else, that underlies Lilican society. The main art of the Lilikaner is theater: plays, children's shows, opera, ballet, performances created in collaboration with foreign artists. The main difference to “human” theater is that the Lilican state has practically no financial or administrative restrictions on the performance - anything is possible on stage. The state building of Lilicania, where the director of the Lilican theater automatically becomes the king of the country, contributes greatly to this.

Performance ballet "The Death of Polyphemus" with Nikolai Tsiskaridze

Projects of the Lilican Theater

The first performance of the Lilican Theater was called "Two Trees or: Tragic story about the romantic love of the beautiful princess and the prince of the goldfields, and the treacherous yellow dwarf who lived in the orange tree, and about the cruel fairy of the desert who separated the lovers Has". In the years that followed, the project evolved, and Moscow audiences were able to attend more than 10 different performances. The myth-shrouded legend about the Lilicans was carried on from mouth to mouth. From 2000, the project “The Lilican Museum of Theater Ideas” was created within the framework of the Lilican theater. Maiya Krasnopolskaya and Ilya Epelbaum had invited famous directors, playwrights, dancers and other artists to take part in the Lilican performances. The main idea was that in the Lilican Theater there are no restrictions like censorship, budget, fire regulations, political correctness etc. that there are in other theaters. The only restriction is that the performance cannot last longer than 15 minutes. Anatoly Vasilyev, Tonino Guerra , Nikolay Tsiskaridze and Petr Fomenko worked with the Lilican Theater on this project .

The new project of the Lilican Theater is called "Rapid Theater Aid" - Lilican actors have decided to go on tour and perform their performances directly in a mobile minivan .

Performances by the Lilican Theater in Germany

The Lilican Theater has made guest appearances in Germany several times. A demountable building was built for this.

2003: Berlin
2004: Mainz
2016: Erfurt (project "Rapid Theater Aid")
2017: Fürth (project "Rapid Theater Aid")

Then the Lilican Theater made guest appearances in various EU countries, as well as Israel and Brazil.

Awards

The performances of the Lilican Theater have been awarded the national theater prize of the Russian Federation "Solotaja Maska" ("Golden Mask") several times.

Web links

Individual evidence

[1] 2016 - Erfurt

[2] - 2017- Fürth