Background

Playing Dead

by the Presnyakov Brothers

13 males, 4 females. Five interiors. Two acts.

Valya is a young man making ends meet by working for the police as a stand-in for criminals at crime scene investigations. The crimes people commit these days are astonishing – no one seems to have a conscience. And the world is changing so fast: Valya’s mother doesn’t understand him, he doesn’t understand his girlfriend, the police captain is totally baffled by everything. Only Valya’s dead father – a spectral figure who returns from the other world to give his son advice – has any authority for Valya. But is there any place left at all for authority in society? Does anything have any meaning when everything seems like a mad rush for insanity and death?