Address: 7a, Lunacharskogo St., Kiev, School of Jazz and Variety Arts

Phone: +3 044 517-69-97

Little theater “Oxymoron” appeared in 2004 as a creative community of young performers of stage arts. The troupe of the theatre is very diverse: here you can find the artists of original-trick genre, mimes and musicians, choreographer and painters.

 In the meantime “Oxymoron” is mainly youth theatre. The main cast is no older than 35. Youth and diverse stage experience give an opportunity for the constant experiments on scene. The theatre is mainly based on variety foundations, trying to combine modern entertainment forms with the majority of known actor technologies and schools.

 You shouldn’t think though, that local troupe plays nothing but pretentious and deliberate “theatricism”. On the contrary, the repertoire of “Oxymoron” can be an object of envy for any academic theatre. Here we got Shakespeare, Lorka, Bulgakov, Beckett, Kharms, Gogol and Kortasar. Still, there are some works of modern authors, of course.

 Why did the theatre call itself with such an unusual word? From the Greek language “Oxymoron” translates as “sharp rubbish”. This is a special literature trick, combination of incongruous (classic examples would be such titles as “An ordinary wonder”, “Living cadaver”, “Back to the future”). Theatrical crew consciously chose the existence on the edge, genre junction and a view of the show, where choreography, tricks and pantomime combine with the live communication with the spectator.

 Here’s what Julia Sulima, the stage director of the theatre, says about the principles of performances of “Oxymoron”: “We’re making the performances on the basis, that has century-long traditions, plus the plot, familiar and understandable for everyone. The stories which we play are fairy tales. Sometimes sad, sometimes violent, strange or a little bit naïve, romantic or funny – they are the mirror of our life, where everything’s a game”.

 Here the conciliation was found between 2 different theatrical systems – the school of Stanislavskiy, where the “living” of the role means the internal penetration of the actor in the role which leads to its external expression, and “the school of representation” where the external images help to open the sense depth. The theatrical method of biomechanics developed by Vsevolod Meyerkhold, and the tricks of Italian comedians from famous actor and teacher Fabrizio Paladin – all this you can find behind the walls of one theatre. We should envy such a versatile education, because in the end the theatrical product will be unusual, different from the academic theatre, and from the numerous non-professional “skits”.

 Many performances were played during these years. “Oxymoron” lives in rhythm of a few art-projects. The most famous of those is an international project “Chekhov dell’arte”. The play here combines the modern forms of “communicative theatre”, with the foundations commedia dell’arte and creative method of Chekhov. The project includes a number of interactive performances, created on common theatrical platform as a live-action impromptu.

 The theatre “Oxymoron” accomplished some joint culture projects with famous Kiev Museum named after Bogdan and Varvara Hanenko. Culture project “Theatre – Live Museum” proposes theatrical evenings for adults and a special program for young visitors of the museum – “The Adventure of Sinbad the Sailor”. “Prime Excursion Bureau” is a partner of the project, telling kids about fabulous treasures and secrets of Eastern countries in the live-action form of Arabic legends.