IN MEMORIAM

About love again? Yes, precisely: again and again we speak of love. We have spoken, we speak, and we will speak. Always. At least for as long as Man and his Soul are alive. A premiere performance about great and all-encompassing love, penetrating, tremulous and tender love, all-consuming and faithful love took place at the Azerbaijan State Academic National Drama Theatre: The Owl Flew In, Or Let's Talk a Little About Love.

In a single breath

The production, timed to the 90th anniversary of the great prose writer, film screenwriter and playwright, People's Writer of Azerbaijan Maqsud Mammad Ibrahim oghlu Ibrahimbeyov, was staged by Honoured Art Worker of Azerbaijan Bahram Osmanov. He and production designer Sahib Ahmadov settle on a single stage all the characters from the novella The Owl Flew In and the novel A Woman in Black. The audience is also involved in the performance.

This yielded a stunning result, allowing the audience to be not passive observers but participants in the events throughout the nearly hour-and-a-half-long performance. At arm's length from the viewers, Ibrahimbeyov's characters lived the lives of utterly real and recognisable people from a coastal settlement on the Absheron Peninsula. With convincing authenticity, the theatre's actors created the personalities and images of the characters—the heroes of this complex story. A human story and a humane one: with all the vices, flaws, lofty and base passions and whims; the searches for Goodness and Justice.

Osmanov defined the genre of the play as a love story in one act. And this act, by his will and design, is transferred to a film set. Osmanov, while filming a movie, thus elevates this story to another level—the level of the prose author's professional belonging to the world of cinema. It might seem nothing special: a story like any other. However, the point is that despite all the buts, in this intimate, confessional stage space for two evenings in a row, the genius and great author—Maqsud Ibrahimbeyov—reigned supreme!

A treasure

All the work of our compatriot is permeated with love for the people of his country, whom he knew, loved and understood as few others can.

The viewer can directly, during the performance, "communicate" with the director, with the set, costume and lighting designers, the choreographer, the actors, and of course, with the invisibly present Maqsud Ibrahimbeyov.

This theatrical premiere once again demonstrates that the creative company is in very good shape professionally!