Man appears in Face of the Earth not as the crown of creation, but as an arrogant and egocentric creature, who leaves the trace of garbage behind him and is convinced that the universe revolves around him. A large scale production needs a big idea, and in the new production of St. Petersburg Youth Theatre such an idea is present: in Evgenia Safonova’s piece the subject of ecology becomes the starting point for unexpected on the Russian stage reflections on the collapse of the humanistic civilization, on the disappointment in man, in his meaning and purpose.

It’s not possible to perform the story of the sociocultural catastrophe, it can only be narrated, commented and reflected on, and that’s what the collective body, the polyphonic choir is doing in Face of the Earth. Meanwhile, for the most part of the production the action takes place not on the stage, but above it – on the giant poly-screen, which compels attention of the audience by the elaborate multimedia narration. The protagonists of Face of the Earth are not the actors, but video, sound, and light (which is quite logical).

The very choice of means of expression has contributed to the design of the entire piece: everyone and his brother is employing video cameras and online streaming in Russian theatre today, but very rarely does the use of multimedia look so dramatically meaningful and justified. In this production the conversation is led from the point of no return, where, under the influence of the proverbial human factor, the face of the Earth is changed once and for all, and many details of the ecosystem cease to exist, being preserved only in audio and video documentation: the digital signal in Face of the Earth is a sign of the inanimate, disappearing, lost.

Dmitry Renansky, Kommersant

The actors “construct” certain climate and geological phenomena before the very eyes of the audience – in small terraria, using figurines of people, animals, plants, as well as
intricate props, imitating waves and fogs. The video camera documents the events in real-time mode – the enlarged image is projected onto the screens on the sides of the stage. Leading the process, “the conscious man” in these scenes reminds of a focused student, who is dismantling a complex mechanism into tiny details in order to recreate it later, — and in the process to find out how it functions. The Face of the Earth, which one may want to describe as a project or an action rather than a production, makes in clear: humankind might be saved only by such level of awareness towards the planet.

Natalia Sokolova, Prochtenie

The production team uses such rhythm and way to make an impact which one can hardly resist – and not only because the informational polyphony doesn’t let one “have a rest”. Sound, light, noises, music, lions, eagles, silent fish, starfish from the sea, and creatures invisible to the eye – in one word, all the lives, passing by on the screens, live footage, increasing the size of something small to make it giant, – all of those (long time ago and legally) became the expressive means of theatre. However, combined with the actors’ mode of existence, the unexpected depth emerges.

For the actors this is not theatre – this is an action, a protest action, where the usual manifestations of acting may seem inappropriate: charm and smile, the diversity of intonations, the ability to convey the multidimensionality of the image. Minimalism in everything: the genre of non-fiction for them is non-action.

Maria Smirnova-Nesvitskaya, St. Petersburg Theatre Magazine

Evgenia Safonova’s production is a super-lecture with play elements (including actors dressed as life-size animal puppets), stuffed with such powerful facts about the state of the planet, that after the curtain call one wants to start planting forests immediately.

Alexey Kiselev, Afisha