With eyes wide open: immersive hit "The Returned" will be shown only 60 times

There is an old mansion in the center of Moscow. There, guests are forced to turn off their phones, hide their identity and remain silent, because what they see in the walls of the Alving house sometimes makes you want to scream. This is not a criminal summary, but impressions from the entourage of the acclaimed immersive play "The Returned", which ten years after the premiere reopens its secrets to the audience. But only for 60 impressions. Izvestia was among the first to visit the mysterious mansion.

Silence is gold

— Turn off your phones to get into my house. Those who came with friends, husbands and wives, should split up. We'll depersonalize you by wearing masks. It is forbidden to speak. If you have taken the item, return it to its place. You can't touch the living or the dead. They will touch you on their own. They can take my hand and take off my mask. Don't resist. This will lead to a new experience," an elegantly dressed man, who turned out to be the owner of the Alving estate, instructed the audience in an insinuating voice at the Dashkov mansion.

The volunteers willingly fulfilled the conditions, and groups of 30 people were gradually brought into the house. The mysterious adventure called "The Returned" was realized by director and choreographer Miguel, theater artists Victor Carino and Mia Zanetti from the New York company Journey Lab, as well as producer Vyacheslav Dusmukhametov.

The production stood at the origins of immersive theater in Russia and quickly gained public recognition. Over the years, the performance has been attended by more than 300,000 spectators from 30 countries. The production was nominated for the Golden Mask National Theater Award in the Experiment category, and then closed for two years. Ten years after the premiere, the renovated mansion is once again ready to tell the guests the eerie story of one family. The creators will be assisted by 18 actors, including theater and film stars Tatiana Lutaeva, Marietta Tsigal-Polishchuk, Linda Lapins, Roman Evdokimov, Gleb Bochkov and Nikita Sanaev.

The play is based on the play "Ghosts" by the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. Those who are familiar with the text will remember that the plot revolves around the widow Helena Alving, who is preparing to open a shelter in memory of her late husband. He was considered an exemplary family man, but the return of his son Oswald from Europe ruins the ideal picture. Skeletons fall out of the closet, and everyone learns about the dissolute life of the former owner of the house, who not only made a child his maid, but also awarded his son with syphilis. In the finale, Oswald asks his mother to help him die when the disease finally robs him of his mind.

The paradox is that knowing the plot won't be an advantage. It might even get in the way, because the usual linear narrative doesn't work here. The viewer is asked to stop analyzing and rely solely on the senses.

The Ghosts of someone else's life

After putting on a white mask and turning off the phone, each guest receives a card depicting one of the human vices — anger, fear, lust, greed, pride. Either a warning, or another piece of instruction.

The red velvet curtain hides the rich decoration of the house, the details of which will have to be explored independently, pushing through the semi-darkness and smoke creeping across the floor. The guests instantly become their own shadows, ghosts, mute witnesses of other people's lives.

The mansion has four floors and dozens of doors. You can go everywhere and touch everything. To lie on a creaking tin bed, to tidy her hair, looking at herself in a gilt-framed mirror, to make her way through the wardrobe doors into a hidden boudoir, from which lovers seemed to have just emerged.

While you are in the house, the feeling that someone is standing behind you does not leave, especially when the creaking of floorboards becomes the only sound, and the dim light goes out and you plunge into total darkness. Sitting in the same room or wandering around someone else's house is up to everyone to decide for themselves. The mansions of the mansion can be found by chance or even stumble upon them, and what you find is not always an ordinary conversation between the characters.

"I've been waiting for you," says a voice behind the girl in the white mask, and, taking her by the hand, the mysterious hero leads the guest out of the living room.

Following them, you find yourself in a spacious and dark room like the whole mansion. At first, only bangs and groans are heard. Because of the strobe light, what is happening can only be seen in momentary flashes of light. My skin crawls. It feels like I'm in the middle of a hypnotic orgy from Stanley Kubrick's cult movie "Eyes Wide Shut."

Meanwhile, under the roof of an art studio, among the plaster heads of Greek thinkers, a half-naked young man writhes in painful agony, covering his head and face with clay. Layer by layer. More and more. Horrified by what you see, you start to back away and stumble upon a girl. She's frozen in mute fear and doesn't pay any attention to you, because you're just a ghost.

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After two hours of wandering around the mansion, Bulgakov's "bad apartment" will seem like a cozy kitchen at his beloved grandmother's. After all, getting out of the Alving house is quite a quest. But once you are free, in the leather armchair of the Ibsen bar, at the wooden counter of which the journey begins, you finally feel completely safe.

The updated version of "The Returned" will be shown only 60 times. The more time a guest wants to spend in the mansion, the more expensive the ticket. The performance runs for two and a half hours. To be among the first to enter, you will have to pay about 12 thousand rubles. Entry 15 minutes after the start of the action will cost 11 thousand rubles, and another 15 minutes later — 9900 rubles. The last time slot is about an hour before the end of the performance. Such a ticket will cost 6 thousand rubles. There is also a VIP category for 44 thousand rubles, which includes accommodation in a separate bar for eight people, welcome drinks and the earliest individual entry.

"Why do I need extra stress, which is already enough?" the reader will reasonably ask. Everyone will find the answer to this question by themselves if they decide to cross the threshold of the Dashkov mansion and live the history of the Alving family.