Oleg Menshikov's "Kitchen" is probably the most unusual production of the recent years. At any rate, no other performance has raised such a storm of passions as this mystical story where contemporary everyday life merges with the ancient myth about love and treachery. The critics hurled the angriest of epithets at the play, while the public bought up tickets in record terms in a hurry to see their favourite's new creation. Although anybody but all became devoted admirers of the play, few remained indifferent.
Perhaps inspired by the words of his previous hero, Menshikov decided to "look comparing the present with the glorious past", but, unlike Chatsky, without favouring any of the times. His idea of "Kitchen" was to tell a modern story dealing with eternal values and the will of fate. Originally set in the contemporary kitchen of a profitable restaurant, the play gradually develops into a parable about long by-gone deeds. With the easy hand of playwright Maxim Kurochkin, the kitchen is inhabited by the heroes of "The Saga of Nibelungs", who due to once committed sins are doomed to repeat their story travelling through time and space. Unaware of it, kitchen workers become involved in the events of King Siegfried's murder and his wife Kriemhild's revenge. King Gunther, the castle owner and Siegfried's murderer, is the only one who remembers the past and has the power to make the others recall it too. But in vain - nobody would listen, and after all everybody would come to where they started.
The secret of "Kitchen" is that it actually is a huge mirror, in which the creators suggest every spectator seeing his own reflection, meditating about his own life, and facing his own inner angles and demons. But not everyone is ready to do it. The authors provided for it too: leaving mysticism and introspection to intellectuals, for ordinary public they filled the show with easily recognized everyday realities - breezy ad slogans, colloquial pearls, and the "critical" view of the situation performed by Beavis and Butthead.
However, it is only the tip if the iceberg. "Kitchen" has so many layers and sides that almost everything can be found in it. Skillfully interlacing everyday vocabulary of modern characters with elevated style of mythological heroes, Maxim Kurochkin was able to imply so many hidden senses and underlying themes in the play that "Kitchen" became something more than just a show. And who else could create the score of the performance, but the composer, who has always stated that his music is what everyone hears in it. Music by Boris Grebenshikov sounds amazingly organic in the production, giving it power and volume, filling the magnificent arches of the ancient castle (created by scene-painter Alexander Popov), where the heroes dressed in exquisite costumes by Igor Chapurin for another time live through their eternal drama.
The names of the heroes of the ancient German epos said little to the Russian public before "Kitchen" was premiered. Now these characters have become dear to many. Having seen "Kitchen" once, the spectators longed to come back there again and again - the energy of the performance stirred, absorbed, and didn't let go. Menshikov and his "Theatrical Company 814" managed to create a living production - just like a human being it was born, learned to walk, grew up, reached its blossom, and then started to fade slowly. The creators decided not to interfere with the natural course of things, and "Kitchen's" stage life ended in June with the traditional for Menshikov's entreprise "green performance", leaving a bright and unforgettable trace in the memory of those who were lucky to get in touch with it in this or that way.
Just for a moment having emerged from the Eternity, "Kitchen" headed to the world where it belonged to…

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