Salzburg Festival 2025Marina Davydova
Land of No Return
€ 35
The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.The previous year, 1990, pogroms took place in Baku — now the capital of Azerbaijan — on the outskirts of the Soviet empire; these resulted in the exodus and diaspora of a huge number of Armenians from the city. In a sense, it was with this exodus that the collapse of the vast Soviet empire began.
The play’s action covers nearly 40 years. The work opens at the end of the 1980s, on the eve of fateful events, and ends in 2022 with the war in Ukraine. The action moves from Baku to Moscow, then from Moscow to Germany. History goes in circles, and through these circles of hell the exiles of different times wander.
Like Tadeusz Kantor with his ‘theatre of death’, the play’s protagonist observes characters from her memories. However, in contrast to Kantor’s performances, they are not ghosts, but real people with completely individual views on tragic historical events. Although the author draws on personal experience and uses some documentary evidence in her text, the plot of Land of No Return and all its characters are fictional.
Regine Zimmermann
Dominik Dos-Reis
Katja Kolm
Christoph Luser and others
Marina Davydova Artistic Assistant