time to smile

The performance is based on the play Infrared by Ester Bol (Asya Voloshina) and is built around a single female monologue, voiced by three women from three different cultures, in three different languages.

At its core lies the search for common ground within the irreconcilable differences of languages and ways of perceiving the world. Crossing the borders of English, Farsi, Russian, and Armenian, the performance strives to move beyond language toward pure presence — the essence of theatre.

A recurring motif is the song Time to Smile, composed especially for the performance by composer Dmytro Saratsky. Sometimes amusing, sometimes irritating, sometimes wounding, it leads to a terrifying conclusion: we endlessly speak of peace and endlessly wage war, walking in circles that no one alone has the strength to stop.

Synopsis: A woman returns to a country at war (each monologue refers to a different war and a different time) to meet the man she loves. He has been sent to the front, and she understands that he is doomed. She goes to him with a single purpose — to conceive a child and carry him across the border within herself.