Confused Times

The author of the play is Klim, a unique and poetic artist of contemporary Ukrainian-Russian theatre, also known as playwright, director and theatre theorist Volodimir Klimenko.  

In his play Confused Times, he presents Smuta (Confused times, early 17th century), one of the most controversial periods in Russian history, which in the aftermath of Ivan the Terrible's death, shook the very foundations of the Russian state. During these two decades, Russian society was torn apart by a series of natural disasters, the emergence of self-proclaimed usurpers, attacks by external powers, civil war, and a severe political-economic crisis. An emblematic figure of this period is Boris Godunov, who would be portrayed later on as a tragic historical figure in Pushkin's well-known play and in Musorgsky's famous opera.

Confused Times is a profound historical and psychological play, which presents the inner motives and fateful actions of the main characters in the conflict through truth-seeking philosophical dialogues, juxtaposing diverging parallel accounts of the events. The play's key question: is there a single, objective truth? How far can individual action go and what is the extent of responsibility in a tense historical situation? What are the consequences of defying fate?

Director Vlad Troyitsky is a renowned and multi-faceted artist of the Ukrainian cultural scene, the founding director of the Dakh Contemporary Art Centre, the artistic director of Gogolfest, and the founder of the Dakhabrakha and Dakh Daughters music ensembles. Hungarian audiences have already seen many of his stage productions in our country, including at Vörösmarty Theatre, Csokonai Theatre and Bárka, as he and his company have made several guest appearances at the National Theatre's Madách International Theatre Meeting, most recently in spring 2022, with the concert - theatre production Ukrainian Fire.