top of page

FINIST THE BRAVE FALCON

Directed by Zhenya Berkovich

Written by Svetlana Petriichuk

Production: SOSO DAUGHTERS

 

Zhenya Berkovich’s staging of Svetlana Petriichuk’s provocative, documentary style play, tells the story of a Russian woman who befriends and is seduced by a member of an Islamic radical sect online, goes to Syria, marries him and upon her eventual return to Russia is tried as a terrorist. In recent years, there have been hundreds, if not thousands of such cases in Russia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. From what are these women running? What is driving them to abandon their friends, relatives, universities and workplaces for the promise of some shadowy paradise? All this takes place in the metaphysical space of the Russian fairy tale “Финист - Ясный сокол” where the heroine - Maryushka - seeks and cannot find her betrothed, the mysterious hero, whose face she has never seen and will never see, but is ready to sacrifice everything in order to meet him.

Presented in Russian with English subtitles.

Photos: Alexander Andrievich

Language: Russian
Translation: English subtitles
Running time:  1h  32min 
(No Intermission)

SOSO DAUGHTERS is an independent theatre project founded in October 2018 by director and playwright Zhenya Berkovich. Over the past three years, the project has staged the play Counting, based on a story by Georgian writer Tamta Melashvili, Meteodevil based on the graphic novel by Gulag prisoner Olga Ranitskaya, and created and presented at the Gulag History Museum in Moscow, and the play Finist the Brave Falcon written by Svetlana Petriichuk, which was a participant of the Russian Case program of the Golden Mask Festival and became one of the most talked about performances of the 2021 season.  

ZHENYA BERKOVICH, a graduate of the Moscow Art Theater School (workshop of Kirill Serebrennikov), has staged productions in some of Russia's most renowned theatres, including, among others, Russian Beauty (Gogol Center), Marina (Gogol Center), The Lark (Moscow Art Theatre), Penguins (MTuZ), Sun Line (Alexandrinsky Theatre, St. Petersburg), and Hamlet (Sverdlovsk Drama Theater, Yekaterinburg). Her production of Counting (SOSO Daughters) was shortlisted for a Golden Mask Award as one of the most notable performances of the 2018/2019 season. Zhenya is Artistic Director of the independent theatre project SOSO Daughters.

Creative Team

Director – Zhenya Berkovich

Author – Svetlana Petriichuk

Producer – Alexander Andrievich

Stage Design and Costumes – Ksenia Sorokina

Composer – Olga Shaidullina

Assistant Director – Amina Mindiyarova

Vocal Teacher – Svetlana Speranskaya

Lighting Design – Elena Perelman

Cast

Natasha Gorbas

Anastasiya Sapozhnikova

Yuliya Skirina

Marietta Tsigal-Polishchuk

Svetlana Speranskaya

Margarita Tolstoganova

Ira Sova

Natalia Sapozhnikova

Leonika Konstantinova

bottom of page