The program includes a performance lasting 25 minutes or 40 minutes

Bubbles are inflated in large numbers from the smallest to the gigantic. During the soap show for children, the artist will show basic tricks with soap bubbles: a bubble caterpillar, a soap carousel, a bubble cake, an aquarium, bubble juggling, a bubble tower, soap grapes, jumping bubbles, create soap foam, and also introduce children to fascinating smoky and fiery bubbles, etc., will immerse everyone in a soap cap (the head is up to the shoulders in a huge bubble), will give both adults and children the opportunity to play the role of lords of soap bubbles: with the help of an artist, you will be able to create soapy rain and clouds, dancing bubbles, trailing bubbles, a giant round bubble, as well as perform easy bubble tricks and throw hand-held soap bubbles that won't burst in the palm of your hand. The culmination of the holiday is the immersion of each guest several times into a huge soap bubble.

You can order a soap bubble show for a children's party or a child's birthday in Moscow and the Moscow region, or for an adult event, be it a wedding, anniversary, corporate event or just a fun party.

Unforgettable impressions and affordable prices from our show are guaranteed!

Program cost -

1. Mini-show of soap bubbles - cost 2500 rubles - soap showwithout diving into a giant bubble, includes tricks with bubbles, giant bubbles, trailing bubbles, various rackets for figure bubbles, fireworks from soap bubbles, soap spacesuits for all participants in the show, as well as participation in the show for children - duration 25 minutes,

2. Soap bubble show "STANDARD" - cost 4,000 rubles - includes a mini bubble show program plus additionally fire and smoky soap bubbles and immersing children in a giant full-length bubble

(duration 30-40 minutes, duration of the soap show depends on the age and number of children)

For children aged 8-10 years and older, you can also order the most complex and spectacular soap show "PREMIUM" - costing 6,000 rubles.

(1 artist is involved - performance duration is up to 40 minutes - includes the "STANDARD" show program, as well as light illumination and beautiful complex tricks with soap bubbles on a professional illuminated LED table with backlight)

NEW!!!

(click if you want more details)

Special offer at special price:

giant soap bubble show + science show = lots of fun and laughter for your children

If you want to know the price and other details, call!

The article will provide ideas and a master class for making a cake from juice and sweets for children.

To surprise your children, you can prepare not an ordinary cake for the holiday, but from their favorite sweets and juice. This requires a little imagination and ideas.

You can combine sweets, cookies, chocolate with the juice in the cake.
This cake is very good for kindergarten, because you can’t bring regular baked cakes there.
This unusual cake can be a great gift for a child. It's bright, beautifully decorated and delicious.
Making such a gift takes minimal time. The hardest part is the base. But with our master class you can cope with it in less than half an hour
You can make a cake for kindergarten with your baby. He will definitely enjoy this creative process.

Juice birthday cake: photo

Here is an example of a cake that can be made for a child's birthday. We choose small juices, any to your taste.

Juice and Barney cake for kindergarten: photo

We make a cake from juices and sweets together with the child. We need: two round bases for boxes, corrugated paper, tape and silicone glue, scissors, decor to your taste (ribbons, stickers, etc.)
To begin with, we attach juices to the base, the same amount as the children in the group. This can be done conveniently using hot silicone glue. If there is not enough space along the contour, the juice can be placed inside the circle
This design with juices will be our base. To decorate it, wrap it neatly in brightly colored corrugated paper and tie a ribbon
Making the second layer. It should be smaller than the first one. This time we make the base from the baby’s favorite sweets. We also attach the sweets to the base and wrap them in corrugated paper.
Place the candy layer on top of the juice. To secure them, you can carefully wrap them with tape.
Now let's start decorating. You can do this at your own discretion; foil, stickers, and thematic inscriptions can be used.

Juice and barney cake
Step 1

Juice cake base

The base for the juice cake can be made from cardboard and the juice and candies can be placed on it. The most impressive look is the three-tier base, which is covered with paper. It looks like this.

DIY candy and juice cake: master class

For a cake made from juices and candies we need: cardboard, scissors, glue, corrugated paper of two colors, scrapers, tape, white paper, small juices, candies
Let's make the base first. It will consist of a circle and sides. We will have three such forms, the bottom one is more, the top one is less
Cut out a circle of the desired diameter and measure the circumference. Cut a strip 10-15 cm thick and a length equal to the circumference. Now we attach the side to the circle base. To make this easier, we make cuts in the side
Thus we make 3 parts. Cover them with white paper (or any other color)
We place one base on another, fasten them with tape or glue. We should have a three-tiered juice cake base.
Now carefully place the juices around, securing them with glue
We decorate each tier with corrugated paper and ribbons
Now we wrap the candies. To do this, attach each candy to a toothpick using tape. We wrap the candy itself in corrugated paper, creating the illusion of flowers
We carefully attach the sweets to the juice cake. Decorate to your liking

Juice and candy cake Step 1

Cake made from children's juices and sweets, chocolates

Cake ideas that you can bring to life yourself:

Cake made from juice and chokopai cookies

As sweets, you can use delicious Chokopai cookies to complement the juice. This cake can be made from juice and Chokopay:

And, of course, any delicacy for children is kinder chocolate. You can use both Kinder surprises and chocolates in the cake. But kinder surprises don’t hold up so well. Idea for decorating a cake from kinders and juice:

Chupa Chups juice cake

Chupa Chups is another favorite sweet for children. A great idea is to turn lollipops into flowers. To do this, use corrugated paper or foil.

As a supplement to the juice, you can use small toys or soap bubbles. Make sure that the jars are tightly closed and that soapy water does not get on the food.

Video: Making a cake from juice with your own hands

It’s your child’s birthday, but you don’t know what to bring to kindergarten to treat the kids? Make a beautiful cake from juices and sweets! The kids will be delighted!

What's a holiday without a cake, especially if it's a child's birthday! But the difficulty for parents is that babies should receive only natural, hypoallergenic, healthy, easily digestible and moderately fatty foods. Unfortunately, only a small number of confectionery products have similar properties.
This is why parents will never be allowed to bring cream cake, ice cream, or other children’s favorite but not very healthy treats to kindergarten.
There are two options left - treat the name day with apples and biscuits, or make an original cake from juice, biscuits - Barney bears and other children's sweets

Juice cake for kindergarten: photo. DIY barney and juice cake: master class

Probably not a single child will refuse to drink juice from a small pack with a straw. A kindergarten group or little guests invited to a name day will be incredibly happy with this treat. Therefore, the simplest idea for making an unusual cake would be to use packaged juices. Mom and Dad who are making the cake need to consider a few things:

The juice must be fresh and of high quality. It is better to choose a brand of baby food that contains a minimum of sugar and preservatives. Be sure to look at the date of manufacture of the drink
It is better to choose juice from the least allergenic fruits and berries. If there are allergy sufferers in the children's group, a delicious “multi-fruit” or “citrus cocktail” can cause an unexpected unpleasant reaction in them. It is better to buy the simplest apple juices, they are suitable for almost all children
The number of cookies should correspond to the number of children. It’s easy to predict the reaction of one of the kids if he doesn’t get a treat. It’s better to use a couple of extra juices in making the cake.

IMPORTANT: To be on the safe side, you can ask the kindergarten teacher what juices and other sweets can be brought to the group for children to treat

At a children's party, kids will want not only to drink, but also to eat something tasty. You can complement the juice cake with something that all children love, for example, Barney biscuits. In a convenient portioned package, they are ideal for an original cake. Of course, they also need to be taken for all children in the group.

Making a Barney cake from juices and biscuits for children is an opportunity for adults to show their imagination. They can also involve a child in the creative process, unless, of course, the finished product should come as a surprise to him.

A short master class will tell parents where they should start.

First of all, you need to think about what will be used for the cake. In order for it to be beautiful and for the children to eat, you need to make it from at least 2-3 components (for example, juices, “Barney” and lollipops)
Next, you should buy sweets. They will be cheaper in bulk. Juice - in packages, "Barney" - in boxes, etc.

And Barney's biscuits come in boxes like these.

At the next stage, everything necessary to create a cake frame is prepared: cardboard, colored and corrugated paper, foil, glue, scissors, stapler, ribbons, beads for decoration, polyethylene wrapping, etc.
The first tier of the cake will be made from juices, since they are the heaviest. If there are a lot of packs, they may take up two tiers. They need to be placed in a circle to measure what the diameter of the cardboard base will be

A corresponding circle is cut out of cardboard. Its decoration is done at your discretion
Juices are placed along the edge of the finished circle. The diameter of the next tier is measured. A new circle is cut out for it - a “lid” and a leg, these elements of the stand are also decorated

All subsequent tiers of the cake are made according to this scheme.

The treats are placed on the cake frame and decorated, for example, tied with ribbons or bows. They are needed, firstly, so that the product does not fall apart, and secondly, for beauty.
You can also use double-sided tape for this purpose. But it doesn't look so aesthetically pleasing. In addition, it will be inconvenient for children to take apart the treats glued to them.

The cake is being packed

IMPORTANT: To prevent juices, biscuits and candies from falling from the stand, you can glue sides to each of the tiers of the cake

And this is a treat for little princesses.

VIDEO: Making a birthday cake from juices and barneys for kindergarten

Juice cake base

As mentioned above, the base for the cake can be made from cardboard. Round or square boxes for candies and other sweets are also suitable for it.

The main thing is that the base is strong, the original design with sweets does not crumble in your hands during transportation and presentation. During its manufacture, it is recommended to use a glue gun, tape, a stapler with strong staples, etc.

The appearance of the base should be aesthetic. During the presentation of the cake, it will be hidden by juices, chocolates, and other children's treats. But when children snatch them up, the cake can turn into something ridiculous, and the overall impression of the treat can deteriorate.

VIDEO: Candy cake base

Cake made from children's juices and sweets. DIY chocolate and juice cake

Various candies are also suitable for decorating the cake, ranging from Mars or Snickers bars, bags of m&m’s and skittles, to any weight candy. But such a treat is most likely suitable not for kindergarten children, but for older children.

Cake made from loose sweets.

Chocolate bars and candies in original design.

Kinder and juice cake

There is probably no child who would be indifferent to Kinder surprises. Imagine the delight of kids if there is not just one egg, but a whole bunch of them! And they are collected into a beautiful cake, one like the one in the photo below.

Cake made from Kinder bars and eggs.

Three-tier cake made from chocolates and Kinder eggs.

Cake - a basket with kinders.

A child's dream is a cake made from lots of eggs and Kinder bars.

VIDEO: Totik from juice packages, Barney and Kinder surprises

Juice cake and chokopai

Chokopai are delicious biscuits that children have already appreciated and loved. The delicacies do not contain preservatives, GMOs or chemical dyes; they are perfect as an addition to a juice cake.

Juices, chokopai and lollipops are a wonderful treat for kindergarten children.

A small cake made from Chokopai biscuits and children's juices.

Juice and Chupa Chups cake

During the presentation of the juice cake, sweets on a stick will be its decoration, after which the children will enjoy them with pleasure.

VIDEO: Cake for a child made from bags of juice, muesli and candies, decorated with flowers

Cake made from juice and cookies. Juice and cake cake

Cookies are also suitable for treating children in kindergarten or at a birthday party if they:

biscuits or sugar
without preservatives and other chemicals
fresh

It is advisable that it be in individual packaging, separate for each child present at the holiday.

Juices and Barney cookies in the form of a cake for children in kindergarten.

But it is better not to use cakes made from juices, since children cannot have fatty buttercream, white cream made from raw eggs, or boiled condensed milk in large quantities. Yummy food with curd cream or yogurt filling cannot be stored for a long time; it is very difficult to control its freshness.

Cake made from juice and soap bubbles

Children are always pleased if they get some kind of souvenir after the holiday. These can be soap bubbles in bright bottles used to decorate an unusual cake.

Cake for a girl with juices, Barney and soap bubbles. Juice cake with a gift for a three-year-old birthday princess. Large cake with kinder juice for 6 years.

VIDEO: Sweet cake for kindergarten

Soap bubble with cuckoo

Children's program of the Chekhov Festival

This year the Chekhov Festival presents a special children's program for the first time. Yesterday, the Hermitage Theater showed two performances at once - the Swiss puppet show "The Ballad of Portofino" and the Spanish bubble show "Bufaplanetes". MARINA SHIMADINA was falling back into childhood.

Every self-respecting European theater show, be it Avignon or Edinburgh, has its own children's program. This year it finally started at the Chekhov Festival. According to the curator and main inspirer of the children's program, Galina Kolosova, the organizers sought to bring to Moscow not those caramel matinees for children that parents prefer to wait out in the buffet or wardrobe, but performances for the whole family, which speak of childhood not as a country of contented, fat-cheeked toddlers from commercials, but as a time full of serious problems, painful questions and unfulfilled desires. Moreover, all four performances of the program speak about childhood in far from primitive languages, proving that a child can understand the abstract and metaphorical language of music and dance, facial expressions and gestures, and, of course, the international Esperanto of soap bubbles.

The very first production of the children's program, "The Ballad of Portofino" by the Swiss theater "An Gro E An Detail", turned out to be a small masterpiece. All the action of the play takes place inside the double bass. Probably, each of us as a child wanted to look inside a music box, catch the little men living inside a toy model of a ship, or see what the cuckoo does in his free time in grandma’s big clock. Peter Rinderknecht provided us with such an opportunity: in his double bass there is a whole miniature house with real tiny furniture and a working mini-organ, where, according to the will of the author’s imagination, the inhabitants of the cuckoo clock are located - Mr. Koo-Koo and his naughty, freedom-loving son. Performed by these miniature actors, it’s not boring to hear a story about the conflict between fathers and sons for the hundredth time. Moreover, it is told with lively humor. The actor speaks not only for his characters, but also with them: he makes fun of his rude relatives, tries to calm down their arguments. And in between times he manages to communicate with the public, creating a cozy atmosphere of friendly gatherings in the small hall. A compact coffee maker with a miniature refrigerator, hidden in the same magical double bass, and leisurely kitchen conversations—memories of a vacation at sea with a nostalgic display of postcards with views of Italy—come in very handy here. This seemingly optional communication is the charm of the performance. In an hour and a half, the audience becomes so imbued with sympathy for the author of the play and his little heroes that their story imperceptibly becomes a story about each of us. But this beautiful parable about youth and old age, about the growing up of a person, is more likely to be appreciated by adult viewers.

But the Spanish soap bubble show "Bufaplanetes" is understood without translation by viewers of all ages and nationalities. Every child and pre-teen adult knows that there is nothing more exciting in the world than blowing rainbow bubbles. But few people realize that such miracles can be created from ordinary dishwashing foam. The bubbles are huge, a meter in diameter, or tiny, scattering over the stage like a crystal waterfall, bubbles filled with cigarette smoke or multi-colored, like the eyes of a semaphore, bubbles one in the other or on top of each other, amoeba bubbles, planet bubbles, snake bubbles. Magical mirages appearing and disappearing before our eyes. Pep Bow, the world-famous mime who founded an entire theater of soap bubbles, on stage looks like an alchemist conjuring colorful cones, a trainer taming naughty soap animals, or a diligent craftsman who persistently, step by step, creates an eye-catching work of art. Here the noisiest children become silent, holding their breath, and the most gloomy adults have excessive fun.

Izvestia, June 10, 2003

Elena Gubaidullina

Soap and double bass with cuckoo

Children's performances at the Chekhov International Theater Festival

It seems symbolic that productions for children first appeared at the current, fifth Chekhov Festival, because five is the favorite number of children. The organizers of the festival also deserved a full five. The children's program has just begun, but its curators already want to give it the highest rating. Just because they brought us the Swiss “Ballad of Portofino” and the Spanish “Bufaplanetes” - amazing performances, absolutely unlike anything else.

Peter Rinderknecht from the Zurich theater "An Gro E An Detail" and the Catalan Pep Bow, who founded the world's only "Theater of Soap Bubble", are not only magnificent actors and passionate inventors, but also subtle experts in child psychology. They communicate with the young audience on equal terms, conspiratorially involve them in the game and win them over from the first moments. "The Ballad of Portofino" and "Bufaplanetes" have nothing else in common. One performance is like quiet reflection in an old grandfather's office, the other is like noisy fun on the lawn.

Peter Rinderknecht tries to play the double bass. Every now and then he starts and cannot finish the play "Night Butterfly". The sounds absolutely do not fit into the instrument - there is already a lot of stuff crammed in there. The giant polished building contains a miniature room with toy furniture, a refrigerator with a capacity of three cans of Coca-Cola, a life-size coffee maker and even a tiled toilet and bathtub for overgrown wooden dolls. All this farming is discovered completely unexpectedly. The actor plucks the strings as if nothing had happened, when suddenly a window opens in the top deck with a very unceremonious bird. It turns out that the double bass is not a double bass at all, but a cuckoo clock. The cuckoo is a father doll, who has a naughty son doll and a favorite harmonium. The son hates classics, loves rock and is absolutely sure that he will achieve much more in life than his cuckoo-cooking dad. But our audience literally ignored the edifying moments of the unusual story - Peter Rinderknecht performed his performance in English. But the unusual space, jewelry manipulations with movable wooden men and the smallest intricate props, and numerous puppet finds were appreciated by everyone. Although they watched the action with some bewilderment.

But at “Bufaplanetes”, running at the festival in the same Hermitage theater, enthusiastic exclamations of children accompanied the birth and short life of each ephemeral building of Pep Bow. The famous Spanish mime appeared on stage as an eccentric professor of alchemy, performing miracles with the help of a flask of water, a beaker of shampoo and several glass tubes. Bowe's partner Louis Bevia played the cheerful loser. He interfered and messed with the inventor in every way and along the way came up with the easiest ways to build soap structures. Either he will blow foam with a tennis racket, or he will adapt a gas burner to bubble making.

Meanwhile, Pep Bow rejoiced and performed sacred acts. Soap balls were inflated with cigarette smoke, turned into ping-pong balls and kites, sparkled and shimmered in the spotlights, chased each other, flirted, connected, twirled and exploded with fireworks. Each subsequent creation of Bow turned out to be larger and larger than the previous one. The magician and wizard inserted one soap ball into another and, quite surprisingly, took it back out. And in the finale, in complete darkness, a giant rainbow city with sparkling tents appeared on the stage - the mysterious land of Bufaplanetes. Before becoming an actor, Pep Bow worked as an architect. I don’t know what kind of houses he built, but the soapy buildings that grow and fly apart from light breezes look like true masterpieces on the theater stage.

MK, June 10, 2003

Soap bubble cake

Dishwashing detergent, water and a little glycerin are all you need to turn cold reality into a fairy tale. Artists from Catalonia Pep Bow and Luis Bevia with the play “Bufaplanetes” from the children's series of the Chekhov Festival opened the doors to the world of ghostly fantasies. Svetlana OSIPOVA dreamed together with the little spectators.

In Russian, “bufaplanetes” is something like inflatable planets. They are born at the behest of the charming clown Pep Bow, who sometimes looks like a good wizard, sometimes like a mad scientist. But “planets” disappear, alas, whenever they want. However, not all so simple. As Louis Bevia told us, the lifespan of a soap bubble directly depends on the weather outside the window. If there is a dry wind, then the “planets” live only about 20 seconds, and if it rains, then a whole minute longer. We were lucky because on Sunday, when Pep and Luis gave their first performance, it was cloudy. So the “planets” were blown out easily. They shimmered with all the colors of the rainbow - and none of them repeated the other: round, oval, shapeless, colored and even filled with cigarette smoke. They appeared from everything - from glass tubes, tennis rackets, and a small white ball could suddenly appear inside a large and transparent one.

The most difficult trick, says Louis, is to extract the “baby” from the inside of the “mother.” This must be done very gently so that it does not burst and turn into a cloud of cigarette smoke.

It’s strange, it seems like adults, but they think about soap bubbles. However, with these same planets made of soap, you can, for example, play ping-pong, bake a cake from them, or make a lampshade over the table. The product will be exclusive. But the most important thing is that with a fairy tale of soap bubbles you can conquer the most beautiful girl on earth. Pep succeeds. And in fact, what kind of woman wouldn’t follow someone who can present her with the dream itself on a silver platter! Well, or on the palm of your hand. In Moscow, the performances will last until June 12.

Alisa Nikolskaya

Dancing, bubbles and an old double bass

Children's performances at the Chekhov Festival

A separate program for children appeared in the repertoire of this famous show for the first time. Moreover, it turned out to be the shortest. However, visiting the performances left the most positive feelings both in terms of quality and the reaction of the public. At first I thought: who will go to all this - ordinary parents with children, or, as usually happens at festivals, mainly specialists and “their” audience? However, it was this program that became “theater for the people”: whole families with children from four to fourteen years old went to the box office of the Hermitage Theater, where the main block of performances were played. Probably, the composition of the audience influenced the course of the performances: the children's audience reacted sensitively and directly, trying their best to understand what was happening on stage. Which was not very easy, for example, in the play “The Ballad of Portofino” by the Swiss theater “An Gro E An Detail”, which was performed in English. But at some point the textual details became unimportant. The story told in the play is so transparent that emotions successfully replace words. At first it seems that “Ballad...” is a one-man show. On stage is a charming middle-aged gentleman (author and performer Peter Rinderknecht), who first, after apologizing, finishes the chess game with himself, and then dresses up in a scarlet concert tailcoat and enthusiastically plays the opus “Night Butterfly” on an old double bass. But he is not destined to play to the end, because at some point the double bass will take on a life of its own. It hides a small room where a sad doll man lives. He is sad about the passing time, which is counted by the evil cuckoo clock, and cannot find a common language with his son. The son, like all young people, loves loud music and does not want to be like his parent. They quarrel, argue, worry, and then in despair rush to the owner of the double bass so that he can reconcile them. The owner at first grumbles: “It’s none of my business!”, but he loves his doll friends too much and therefore comes up with a way: he throws the debaters a magic box with all sorts of miracles, including swimming suits in which you can swim to the wonderful town of Portofino - a kind of heaven on earth. Of course, Portofino exists only on a postcard or in the imagination, but thanks to this fantasy, the puppet father and son come to terms with themselves and with each other. The dolls here are full participants in the action: you empathize with them, and with them you think about the difficult conflict between fathers and sons and the wonderful power of dreams. And the wise storyteller Peter Rinderknecht, having simply and slightly naively told the story of an old double bass, will improvise on it again and again in the hope of finishing “Night Butterfly”. What if this helps him create a new story?

The Spanish play "Bufaplanetes" by the Pep Bow Company did not need translation at all. Because its main characters were... soap bubbles. Under the guidance of the alchemist wizard Pep Bow and with the help of a flask of water, a bottle of shampoo and several glass tubes, real miracles were born. Who would have thought that ordinary rainbow balls could be ping-pong balls and kites, that they could have their own personalities and relationships? Throughout the entire performance, the bubbles danced no worse than the flesh and blood performers, chased each other, flirted and flirted, and then suddenly exploded into hundreds of small sparks. The restless Pep Bow, director and tamer in one, conducted his numerous charges, played with them and fought, childishly rejoicing at each newborn. In the finale, a giant city appeared on the stage, a real architectural masterpiece (apparently, the same “Bufaplanetes” - an inflatable planet), where, probably, all the dreams of both adults and children come true. Of course, both “The Ballad of Portofino” and “Bufaplanetes” cannot be called 100% children's performances; rather, they are performances for family viewing. However, this nice company also includes a performance that is not at all for children, although it is unusually entertaining: “Ta Ti Ting” by the Danish theater “Rio Rose”. Author and director Catherine Poer presented on the Small Stage of the Chekhov Moscow Art Theater a whimsical cocktail of fantasies on the themes of popular children's fairy tales, events of recent world history and all kinds of human thoughts and desires. All this is retold in separate text fragments in several languages, accompanied by music and original plastic art. Seventy-five minutes of action are so densely packed with events that it takes a fair amount of time to further think about what you saw. At first, on the stage there is only an old woman sitting on a heap of rags who wants to eat, and a mysterious gentleman who resembles an orderly from the corresponding institution. But soon this strange old woman will pull out of the rags first a flexible, handsome dancer, then a pretty young lady in a dress with flowers, and, finally, an eccentric musician with an accordion, who will eagerly offer his art to the public. This whole cheerful company will spend a long time and excitedly sorting through the numerous clothes on the floor, remembering the history of everyone who wore this or that dress or jacket: a respectable bourgeois, a famous athlete, a cripple who suffered in the war. And then the company will begin to transform itself into those in question. And this is just the beginning. There will also be Little Red Riding Hood in male form, and the voluptuous Gray Wolf, and the timid Snow White in a ball gown, and two demonic gentlemen who will share her in the dance, and a newly emerged grandmother, charming everyone’s teeth in order to save her life. But at some point, fun and games will suddenly give way to the bitter intonation of loss, the heroes will dress in dark clothes, and the rag sack will turn into a huge black shroud. The dreaming grandmother will be dressed in a scarlet evening dress and a song “about a dead friend” will be sung to her. And the viewer, captivated by the dizzying pace of the action, will be stunned into silence, not having time to switch from deliberate theatricality to painfully tangible reality. Of course, “Ta Ti Ting” was a little difficult for children, especially small ones, to watch. But it was there that there were the least number of young spectators. And the adult audience, I think, found a lot of attractiveness in this spectacle.

Vremya Novostei, July 4, 2003

Dina Goder

Without princesses and kikimora

When my daughter was little, we often went to the theater, and it even seemed to me that she liked it. And at the age of eight or nine, she suddenly refused to watch another fairy tale resolutely and irrevocably: “I don’t want to - they always scream in the theater.” By and large, she was right. I had to fall behind, and a few years later I had to start building trust in the theater again - with good adult performances. It must be said that for many children, the fear of elderly princesses and shrill kikimores remains forever. As adults, they attend commercial performances - aesthetic continuations of fairy tales about hysterical princesses and grimacing kikimoras, and remain convinced that this is what real theater is.

I’m telling you all this to say that in a huge city where there are almost no good children’s performances, but full of parents who dream of watching something exciting with their children, it’s high time to bring shows for little ones from abroad. And so the Chekhov Festival, which previously delighted only adult theatergoers, decided this year to try out a small children's program. I saw three out of four, and they were all excellent, and the fourth, they say, is no worse. It’s only a pity that there was so little information about these performances that the halls of the Hermitage Theater were not full, and children greedy for entertainment remained sitting in their boring dachas.

Of course, the hit of the children's program was the famous "Bufaplanetes" - for 20 years, the soap bubble show of the Spanish clown Pep Bow has traveled the world and won a bunch of awards. In essence, this is not a performance - in “Bufaplanetes” there was no action or plot, but only a huge magical attraction in which soap bubbles of incredible shapes, sizes and colors flew out of the different-sized tubes of a shy, bespectacled clown. Without saying a word, Bow inflated the balloons with cigarette smoke, inserted them into one another, built figures out of them, juggled, played ping-pong, decorated the girl he liked with them like jewelry, and showered the entire hall with them. Children squealed with delight and jumped in the aisles, trying to catch the waterfall of iridescent balls.

“The Ballad of Portofino” by the Swiss Peter Riederknecht and “The Tale of Childhood” by the Italians Michele Abbondanza and Antonella Bertoni are no longer shows, but real performances, and not so much for children as about childhood. Nostalgic and tender.

Peter Riederknecht is a trusting and talkative double bass player (he speaks to the audience in very simple English, but is ready to switch to any other European language for the viewer who does not understand something), as if he had come to play a concert in front of us. And along the way he tells a sweet, lyrical story, constantly being distracted by parallel plots, promising his mother (on his cell phone) to buy groceries or showing off his scarlet velvet jacket: “Isn’t he handsome? Feel the material. By the way, it's expensive! I rented it." When Peter plays solo, a tiny window opens in the top of the double bass, like in a clock, from which a cuckoo peeks out. This is where the real plot begins: the double bass turns its back side towards the viewer and it turns out that in its upper part there is an apartment of cuckoos, father and son (from the other side they look like little men). The middle-aged, grumpy dad routinely goes to croak every hour, and the goofy son listens to loud music, is cocky, dreams of freedom and does not want to waste his best years on boring work. Then both “cuckoos” remember their holidays at sea, in the town of Portofino. Peter takes out larger dolls from the lower part of the double bass, and acts out with them a memory of happiness, and then reconciliation: the father, relaxed with dreams, for the first time in his life forgets to crow in time, and the son, worried, goes to a dangerous, “high altitude” for the first time. work with my father.

Good children's performances are always born on the border between genres. The Swiss "Ballad of Portofino" is between drama theater and puppet theater, the Italian "Childhood's Tale" combines drama with plastic theater. The charming story about dreamer brother and sister - ten-year-old Tomaso and eight-year-old Nina - and their terrible parents is more danced than told. Two wonderful actors play children and parents at the same time, literally with one gesture and intonation denoting the transformation of a scolding father into a naughty son and a dreamy daughter into an always busy mother. Children, constantly living among lectures and slaps, tell each other horror stories at night, skip school, going to the cemetery, and play with fire when their parents go to their endless “La Traviata”. The parents, unable to bear the pranks, decide to send Tomaso to a boarding school, and then Nina and her brother run away to freedom.

And this is where the problem begins. The excellent performances brought to Moscow (thanks to the selectors) are, in essence, productions not for children, but about childhood. Either about the children themselves, or about the child’s sense of the world. These performances do not adapt themes, plots, or language for children. There is a positive side to this - children, who easily accepted indirect, rushing narration and elegant theatrical metaphors, I hope, when they grow up, they will not demand simplification from the theater. However, I am sure that performances cannot be staged without appealing to children’s consciousness at all. I myself am ready to watch plays about evil parents as much as I want. But I’m glad that my child did not see the story about children who dreamed of dying so that their father and mother would love them. And that the best form of protest for an eight-year-old child is to leave home. I think that the suffering that these new thoughts will bring to a sensitive child who does not yet separate life and theater is very great and far from art. And the more charming the performance, the more difficult it will be for the child to overcome the anxiety and feeling of insecurity that may arise when he is shown that there are parents who do not love their children, beat them and separate them.

And yet, it was at the Chekhov Festival that our children could see several performances in which the actors were able to easily and effortlessly communicate with the audience, instead of smearing their faces with soot and jumping around like goats. And now we can hope that in ten years, among adult theatergoers there will be a little more people who know that there is more than just shouting in the theater.