Musician Evilena Protektore, who worked as a singing teacher in the theater for the fourth year and also replaced an actor who has to sing on stage, immediately accepted this project. “The offer was unexpected, but I like challenges,” she says and quickly admits that her older brother listened to Victor Choi’s songs. “There was a guitar club at school. My classmates who went there once showed me some chords on the guitar. I learned two songs and only a long time later I found out that one of them was Coja Aluminum cucumbersWhen the theater started the Luk project, taa! in August of this year, Evilena, as a song arranger, started listening to the lyrics and found that Tsoi knew how to easily understand and tell what people were thinking. “Listening superficially, you cannot feel disgust for the Soviet regime, the government, the economy, but when you dig deeper, you can clearly hear the despair of the people. The scary thing is that when I read these texts, I realized I realize that not much has changed these days. People argue, the economy falters … The war in Ukraine has inflamed tension in society. Fear does not go away. But it is wrong to think that the little person cannot influence anything . If everyone dares and gets it, they will, something will change. “
Actor Rodion Kuzmins will also perform Viktor Tsoi’s songs in the show, which is not a concert at all, but a story about the singer. He remembers that in his teens, when he was involved in music, he listened to Choi’s songs, but “it wasn’t my music. However, when I had to look at the work of this legendary man through the prism of my profession, I saw the side of him as a poet. It is a great honor for me to sing his songs, because they resonate so much with today. They are important now. It hurts me when I sing and think about what is happening in Ukraine now … There are no decent words for this, “commented Rodion Kuzmin emotionally.
With this performance, the theater expresses its anti-war position. Rodion Kuzmin quotes the saying that when social pressure increases in society, Brecht and Shakespeare become relevant. “For me, Coj is like Hamlet. It is important to be on stage to say something.” The actor also adds that the director Roman Smirnovs, who personally knew Viktor Coja, his family, friends and colleagues, will not take part in the premiere tonight, because he went to St. Petersburg – his son received a summons for mobilization.
