Towards the end of our first week in Almaty, our professor spammed us with texts about different events and exhibits, saying she would buy the tickets for us if we were interested. I had a free night, so I decided to take my chances see what the theater artиШОК (in English: artishock) had to offer. In total, I have now seen four performances (almost half of their repertoire for this season) in just a month of living here in Almaty.
Founded in 2001, artиШОК became the nation’s first independent theater company. On their website, artиШОК describes its mission as promoting free artistic expression in Kazakhstan. This is not a typical theater by any means. The two stages I’ve seen are small, and the space for the audience is even smaller. The variety of performances in terms of genre and frequency ensured that each time I went to this theater, I had a brand new experience. I had no clue what to expect from any of the performances I saw, but I found that because I was willing to be surprised, because I wanted to see something new and exciting and modern, each of the plays was just as entertaining and engaging as the last.
The door to one of artиШОК’s theaters.
The first performance I went to was a modernized version of the John Travolta film Saturday Night Fever (in Russian: Лихорадка субботнего вечера). Although, having never seen the 70’s classic, I had no idea what the play was going to be about. There were actors milling about, interacting with the crowd before the show started which created a warm and welcoming atmosphere. I do admit that I thought the first actor who spoke with us was just a drunk person from the audience, but I think that spoke to her acting abilities as much as it did to my lack of experience with interactive theater.
In short, the performance was amazing. Despite not being able to understand many of the words spoken, the plot was clear, the interactions with the audience were hilarious (like when they pulled a man out of his seat to become a coat rack during a restaurant scene), and the dance numbers to Kazakh and Russian pop music brought a classic American film into modern Kazakhstani culture. The three of us who went left the performance understanding more about the possibilities of modern art in Kazakhstan and wanting to see what would come next.
Inside the theater for Saturday Night Fever.
Only three of us went to that first performance, but a week later artиШОК invited our entire group to see their production Созвездия, a version of the play Constellations by British playwright Nick Payne. The theater was smaller than the first, dimly lit, and consisted of three white stages dispersed between the chairs for the audience. We had to wear plastic blue coverings on our feet before walking into the performance space, presumably to protect the glowing set.
The play followed the relationship of one couple across parallel dimensions. The dialogue echoed across stories (which greatly helped my comprehension), and the actors traded places to create a multiverse of stories, but each tale ended with a tragic cancer diagnosis and the haunting singing of the actors as the play came to a close. It was emotional, thought-provoking, and very well-acted.
Our covered feet for Созвездия.
A glimpse into the performance space for Созвездия.
After Созвездия we were invited to another show a week and a half later. I was very excited for this play because we were told that it would be a version of Преступление и наказание, aka Crime and Punishment, the book that made me want to learn Russian. What made this production unique and perfect for artиШОК’s stage was that it had almost no words throughout the entire performance except for a few lines spoken in German and some sound effects made by a handful of characters.
I was the only person in our group (besides our professor) who had ever read Dostoevsky’s novel before, so I thought I would have a clear understanding of what was happening on stage. I was quickly proven wrong. The investigator kept eating celery, someone walked around in a trench coat with a stone bust as a head, and actors burst into strange, manic dancing when transitioning between scenes all to the dark music straight out of a noir thriller thanks to the live bass guitar and drums.
I don’t know if I’ll ever again see a play so intelligent, so unusual, or so intriguing. My mind was at work the entire performance, trying to figure out what each detail represented and delighting in the strangeness of the show.
The stage after the performance of Преступление и наказание.
Teagan and me posing with one of the props.
I saw the final performance only two days ago, and this time I hadn’t read the book, only a brief summary on wikipedia (I apologize to all of my former English teachers). It was amazing how quickly and how completely the space had been transformed from the shabby grey apartment in Преступление и наказание into the world of the Мушкетёры (Three Musketeers) with curtains of multi-patterned fabric hanging from ceiling and a glowing blue screen at the edge of the stage that displayed the name of each scene.
The entire show lasted for three hours which was quite a long time to be stuck in my seat. However, like the other three performances, Мушкетёры was worth it. Each actor made their character so distinct and interesting like the villain who had a very humorous walk where he crouched low and plodded along the stage or the queen who kept sweets and maracas in her bra to extract whenever necessary.
The set of Мушкетёры.
The Musketeers appear!
I am not sure when I will see my next performance at artиШОК, but I hope it’s soon. The theater truly exhibits the uniqueness of culture in Almaty, and it seems as if the possibilities for where performances here can go are endless. artиШОК expresses the creativity and brilliance of art here in Almaty, and I am so excited to see what they do next.
Paintings from artиШОК’s gallery in one of their theaters.
