ON STAGE, NUCKIDS PERFORMERS ARE IN THEIR ELEMENT

01.08.2011

Nuclear Kids rehearse from morning till late evening, so they are really in their element when on stage. “We’re at home here!”, they declare in unison. Such a perception of stage as home was important according to the idea of the directors in the kids’ musical. The Bunker of Freedom itself, according to the script, became “not even a second, but the very first home” for the children, where it’s easy and safe, and, as one of the songs says, everyone “has each other’s backs”. The sets and the actors’ props play a significant part in maintaining this image, which creates the atmosphere of teenage housing. “We have very co-o-ol pillows! We can arrange pillow fights with them!” the Nuclear Kids declare cheerfully. “And it’s also fun to climb into different boxes!”

Yes, to create such a sense of play for the young actors, the stage directors worked on a reusable, slightly fairy-tale-like transformation of the scenery. “The multifunctional use of objects is very important,” explains director Alena Zakharova. “Here, for example, the boxes stand close to each other, and a “flashback movie” about the past of the main characters is projected onto them like a screen. After a while, the boxes move apart slightly, and a magical mysterious light behind them begins to flicker, as if coming from behind a door. Then the kids take the boxes, arrange them all over the stage, and these become their little houses, where each hero has his own life. One box is a table, another is a chair… That’s what decorations are for – to be magical, not just for utilitarian use.” It is this transformation that gives the actors themselves creative ideas. So Lev Ilyich (Seversk) proposed a comic solution to one of the scenes: like a jack-in-the-box, he suddenly appears out of a box that was hastily struck by hand.

The workshops by Alexei Kostrichkin were very helpful for the “nuclear” talents in mastering props and decorations. During these classes, the acting teacher explained to the kids how any object (for example, a simple chair!) could be transformed into anything with the help of imagination and skillful acting… Into a bed, a phone, a house? Easy! But Anna made an extraordinary decision by transforming an ordinary four-legged chair into… a slipper! Such a turn of events surprised even the teacher. No matter what you say, the imagination of Nuclear Kids knows no bounds!

“Generally, when an actor is engaged in something trivial on stage,” says acting teacher Tatiana Solntseva, “it really helps to be honest, without artificial pretense. In real life, we don’t talk ridiculously standing opposite each other, hands at our sides, do we? We wash dishes, watch TV, get dressed, eat, knit… Thousands of things! That’s why props are extremely important for creating natural atmosphere on stage.” The young actors themselves also admit that acting while being occupied is much more interesting. “This is my second time in NucKids”, shares Kumar from India, “and this year I like the musical much more precisely because we are constantly busy with something on stage, constantly doing something. It’s really great!” Thus, let’s wish for the Nuclear Kids to continue feeling on stage not like guests, but as if they’re at home. There’s just over a week left until the musical premiere, only 9 days…