?€?Death of a Giraffe?€™ Is Modest, Enjoyable Triumph

Dmitry Krymov’s studio within the School of Dramatic Art is one of the liveliest theater ensembles in town. What is predictable about it is one of its strengths — it invariably turns out creative, playful and colorful performance pieces that gently seem to push the rules of theater to the outer limits.

Krymov’s background as a painter and theater designer — he readily admits that he is not a director — is evident in all he does. His shows come together as if spontaneously before our eyes, like a painting or sculpture being done on the spot. His latest piece, “The Death of a Giraffe,” is very much within the traditions of such earlier productions as “Donkey Hot,” “Three Sisters,” and “Katerina’s Dreams.”

All of these shows are small and created especially to be performed on the intimate, upstairs stage at what is now known as the Open Stage Project. They are episodic, quirky and invariably lighthearted, even when they take on the topics of loss and death.

“The Death of a Giraffe” is a collection of scenes, concocted by the troupe with Krymov, that circles around a family and friends gathering following the death of a patriarch. In this case, the deceased appears to have been a giraffe in a circus. The tales that relatives tell at his wake range from the touching to the hilarious to the absurd.

But the stories — all of which were composed by the actors during the rehearsal process — are not what this show is about.

In fact, the intrigue of the opening scenes involves us reaching the realization that the object of our interest is, indeed, a giraffe. The actors work silently and diligently with a host of simple props — a teapot, a wobbly legged table and some brightly colored wooden blocks — to build a strange construction that we eventually recognize as a toy-like animal.

By the time the performers lift the teetering structure onto the last colored support block with a suspenseful drum roll, there is no doubt: This object with a balloon for a head and a sticky piece of tape and brush hanging from its derriere is, indeed, a giraffe.

That is not true for long, however. One more clumsy circus trick and the giraffe lies, rather like Humpty Dumpty after his fall from the wall, in pieces on the ground.

Thus begins the odd parade of mourners.

First up is the widow of the departed, a gangly female giraffe (Maria Smolnikova) in a wheelchair who shares her heartfelt thoughts about women’s knee-high socks, the grounds for why women can’t be geniuses and the reasons why Russians eat with forks while Chinese use chopsticks.

She is followed by the giraffe’s son (Mikhail Umanets), who never fully felt his father’s love, and the giraffe’s mother (Anna Sinyakina), who provides her detailed recipe for meat cutlets.

More engaging, perhaps, are the increasingly abstract reminiscences of the giraffe’s former stage partner (Sergei Melkonyan), who rattles off several impressive magic tricks; a demure French photographer (Natalya Gorchakova), who once published a photo of the famous giraffe; and a musician (Arkady Kirichenko), who once played at the funeral of a famous athlete and drove a cab in New York.

Each scene takes place against the backdrop of a screen that is stretched across the stage and provides striking shadow images and cinematic flights of fantasy. Visions of soaring flamingos, aerial views of the worlds’ cities and of cosmic space take the fragmented story of the giraffe far beyond the limited confines of the characters’ narratives. At a certain point we cross over from the tale of a specific individual’s life into the territory of philosophical ruminations on what it means to experience life and strive for freedom.

Designer Vera Martynova gave the stage a childlike playroom quality by employing bright reds, blues, greens and yellows on many of the objects and on a drop on the floor. The costumes are a mix of mournful black occasionally punctuated by yellow-black spotted designs that suggest a camel-skin tie or stockings.

For those familiar with Krymov’s most innovative productions — “Opus No. 7” and “The Demon: The View From Above” come to mind immediately — “The Death of a Giraffe” may be a modest accomplishment. But who says every show has to break down doors and kick in windows? In its modest way, “The Death of a Giraffe” is one of the most enjoyable and rewarding shows that I have seen this season.

“The Death of a Giraffe,” a production by the School of Dramatic Art and the Territory Festival, plays this Fri., Nov. 6, 8 and 21 at 8 p.m. at the Open Stage Project, located at 20 Povarskaya Ulitsa. Metro Arbatskaya. Tel. 632-9377, www.sdart.ru. Running time: 2 hours.