Silence shrouds many a family history, as survivors create a maximum distance between themselves and the experiences of the past. In his new play, director and author Boris Nikitin revisits the form of witnessing or “coming out” in a solo format developed in parallel to his big stage productions, which challenge the conventions of documentary theater. He addresses his own previously hidden family history—a result of the 20th century and its displacements.

The performance tells the story of Nikitin’s grandmother from Bratislava. After she died in 2009 at the age of 87, the author learned that she originally came from a Jewish family and had to hide in a barn in Eastern Slovakia for months in 1944–45, while most of her family lost their lives in the German death camps. She kept all this to herself, started a family, became a professor of chemistry. She hid her origin even from her daughters, one of whom was Boris Nikitinʼs mother.

The artist sets out to explore his grandmother’s silence, questioning the extent to which this gap between words is not only found in the many war and postwar stories of the 20th century, but is a mainstay of reality.

Direction, text, performance: Boris Nikitin
Production management: Annett Hardegen
Outside eye: Annett Hardegen, Matthias Meppelink

Link

https://2022.steirischerherbst.at/en/program/artists/3660/boris-nikitin