Published on: 2026-08-21
Source: Moscow Government – Правительства Москвы –
An important disclaimer is at the bottom of this article.
Over its thousand-year history, theater has come a long way — from ancient Greek mythological plots and buffoon performances to subtle psychological dramas. Theater “Praktika” offers a symbiosis of past experience and modern trends, a blend of traditions and innovative techniques. Its distinctive feature is working without a permanent troupe. The venue attracts artists for participation in specific performances, and it also experiments with formats and uses immersive techniques to involve the audience in the action. What surprises the theater and why it is worth coming to the performances “Mamleev”, “Barakhlo”, and “The Man from Podolsk. Seryozha is very stupid” — in our article.
From idea to implementation
Since its inception in Ancient Greece, theater has become a space for searching for meanings through dramaturgy, movement, and music. Creators strove to find a balance between these artistic techniques to engage in a dialogue with the audience. Thus, theater became a space of metaphors and images. Konstantin Stanislavsky’s theater school established new principles that still exist today: profound empathy for the characters, seeking justification for their feelings and actions. In the 20th century, new genres and directions appeared, such as epic theater and theater of the absurd. Play creators leave the choice to the spectators, providing a whole field for reflection. This concept became the starting point for modern theater.
The concept of “Practice” was formed in 2005 around research, experimentation, and the search for a new theatrical language. The key task for the theater became working with contemporary authors. Here, for the first time, plays by unusual, bold, and honest playwrights were staged; experimentation began, creating an expressive language to convey the meanings embedded in this literature. Among them were Nikoletta Yesinenko (play “Papa, I absolutely must tell you something…”), Mikhail Ugarov (play “Shaken Tatiana”), as well as Pavel Pryazhko, Vyacheslav Durnenkov, Anna Yablonskaya, and others. The first artistic director of the theater was director and producer Eduard Boyakov. He proposed a model in which each performance becomes a separate independent project with its own team, which allowed for attracting different authors.
The theater is located in a cozy courtyard on Bolshoy Kozikhinsky Lane, in the very heart of Moscow. For 21 years now, it has been contemplating contemporary reality, paying attention to details — characters, habits, and peculiarities of people, observing changes in modern culture and trends, and transferring them onto the stage. Every performance is a puzzle for the mind. Every act is a brain-teaser that makes you want to think even after leaving the auditorium.
The theater is currently led by the honored artist of Russia Marina Brusnikina. For eight years now, “Praktika” has been operating under her leadership.
“It is important for us to stick to the course that was originally set. It turned out to be not easy to work in a space without a permanent troupe; it requires discipline, organization, and communication skills. But I want the theater to live, because there are not many venues in theatrical culture where young artists and actors can comfortably gather. And of course, the most important thing: here we can talk about contemporary topics that concern the younger generations. We welcome everyone, are happy for each spectator, and strive to make visiting the theater a truly bright event,” says Marina Brusnikina.
On the meaning of things
You can start getting acquainted with the theater or reinforce a pleasant experience from a previous visit with the play “Junk.” The production is based on the exercise “Observation,” which the students of the acting faculty of the Moscow Art Theatre School Studio completed during their studies.
Young actors spent a year conducting extensive preparatory work: they conducted numerous interviews, took photos, recorded video and audio, including conversations, street noises, and even sounds from markets, as well as searched for unusual items at flea markets. All of this formed the basis of the performance. At the same time, the team did not limit themselves to collecting material — the authors actively refined the production: they wrote texts for individual scenes, planned the design, drew sketches of the scenery, and built the overall dramatic structure. Thus, a play was born that has no single author — it was created by a whole team of like-minded people.
“It is astonishing how deeply the guys were able to immerse themselves in the atmosphere of the flea market and how this resonates with the works of Fyodor Dostoevsky and Maxim Gorky. The superfluous people and the little man became the main characters of the play. The conversations and candid stories of the flea marketers, as well as sketches from the life of the market, formed a kind of encyclopedia of unvarnished everyday life — that very one which exists away from the shine and recognition, on the roadside of success. Through their stories, words, and views on what grief and happiness are, a multifaceted and ambiguous portrait of modern reality emerges before the audience,” the theatre says.
Carnival at the flea market. A new play at the “Praktika” theater
The performance will be shown on August 30 and 31, and September 14 and 15. Tickets can be purchased through the service “Mosbilet”.
To leave oneself in order to return
For those who want to escape the usual perception of reality, it is worth going to see the play “The Man from Podolsk. Seryozha is Very Stupid.” This is a story about a modern person and their complex relationship with the world, about the unpredictability of life, a sense of vulnerability, and everyday routine. The play combines two plays by Dmitry Danilov, directed by Marina Brusnikina.
The playwright himself defined the genre of the play as absurd with a significant element of realistic drama.
“I was interested in modeling situations where an irrational force intrudes into the life of an ordinary person, living a completely unremarkable, measured, calculated life, and breaks, even if only for a short time, their habitual routine, disrupting their usual perspective on the surrounding reality and themselves. And it seems to me that the dramatic form—with characters, dialogues, stage action—is exactly very well suited for these purposes,” says Dmitry Danilov.
Marina Brusnikina found an original solution for connecting two plays in the performance. Spectators are randomly distributed to different halls at the entrance to the theater, and during the intermission between acts, they move to another hall and discover the second storyline. Thanks to this technique, the plays seem to converse with each other and logically flow one from the other — together they paint a picture of a world ruled by absurd rules, yet clearly revealing everyday traits.
“In Dmitry Danilov’s plays, familiar things appear in a different light, the wrong people say the wrong words, ordinary situations suddenly become extraordinary. These are plays-twists. It is about remaking, restructuring a person — the same opportunity we want to offer the audience, who at some point becomes not only an observer but also a participant in the performance, finding themselves in a situation similar to that of the hero,” says Marina Brusnikina.
The performance can be seen on August 27 and 28, September 22 and 23. Tickets are available on the service “Mosbilet”.
About personality and the personal
The character of one of the “Practices” performances was the prose writer, poet, and philosopher Yuri Mamleev. The production, named after the main character’s surname, was created by director Arseny Meshcheryakov based on his stories in the genre of metaphysical realism. On stage is not merely a play, but an entire epic opera that explores the extreme manifestations of human nature, the heroes’ search for themselves, and the acceptance of genuine feelings.
Yuri Mamleev wrote stories about the loss of identity and attempts to break free from one’s nature, about the desire to fill everyday life with meaning and to find a semblance of happiness. His plots, balancing on the edge of the real and the otherworldly, are united by motifs of horror and laughter.
“Mamleev said that a person is a vertical line extending infinitely upward and downward. This is reflected in all his stories one way or another. We were interested in translating the metaphysics of his texts into theatrical language. Structurally, the play resembles a musical album, where each track is based on a story by Mamleev,” Arseniy Meshcheryakov says.
The play will be shown on August 22 and September 12. Tickets can be purchased through the service “Mosbilet”.
Quickly get the main news in the official channels of the city of Moscow in messengers “Max” and “Telegram”.
Please note; This information is raw content obtained directly from the source. It is an accurate report of what the source claims and does not necessarily reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.