The only good thing about this dump is that it looks just the way people remember it. Stale beer, worn-out furniture, musty air—the UTOPIA bar was once a shabby refuge for the stranded, the dreamers, and the losers. Fifteen years later, an investor commissions the bar’s reopening—exactly as it was, not a bit better, not a bit different.
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What begins as a nostalgic reverie turns out to be a fanatical evocation of the past. Durnenkov creates fragile characters who cling to the promises of a savior in the hope of a better life. UTOPIA shows how seductive the past can be—and how destructive the desire to bring it back unchanged.
UTOPIA is Betekhtin’s second production in German featuring German-speaking actors in exile. Like the author Mikhail Durnenkov, he was forced to leave Russia following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Durnenkov, a multiple winner of the “Golden Mask,” Russia’s most prestigious theater award, was expelled from the Moscow Art Theater School (MHAT-Studio). Betekhtin’s productions were canceled, his name disappeared from the playbills, and he was placed on a blacklist by the Russian Ministry of Culture. Thus, UTOPIA is a continuation of their collaboration—but now, living in exile, it offers a migrant’s perspective not only on the present in Russia but also on trends in German society.
IN GERMAN
