Mikalaj Khalezin: I wouldn't divide audience to "Polish" and "non-Polish"

Euroradio: Why did the idea to combine two plays appear?

Mikalaj Khalezin: Initially, we spoke only about my play "Jeans Generation". However, I presented it about a hundred times in different countries. It was not interesting for me to repeat this experience once again. Meanwhile, Natasha (Natallia Kalyada) had a brilliant play called "They had dreams". So I braided the two plays into one, so that the two texts became a one long play. The play "They had dreams" tells about the events which happened 10 years ago, and we decided that new stories happened to our friends, and they are closer to us than those events in the past. The stories about the murdered and the kidnapped is one side, and new horrible things appeared now. 

Euroradio: How did you like working with actresses of the Polish Theatre?

Mikalaj Khalezin: Unfortunately, we had little time for working and rehearsals. It turned out that, instead of the planned two months, we worked only for a month in fact. Therefore we had to work fast, operatively, and so that the actors wouldn't get exhausted. Moreover, such experience was very complicated for them. It was very hard for them emotionally. They asked us in the theatre "Is it true that you always cry at rehearsals?" And they indeed cried and laughed a lot. It was a very emotional work: imagine two girls sitting in front of each other looking at one another. One girl is looking at the one who is going to play her, the other is looking at the one she plays. All this ends in tears, for both of them. They start living their stories through here and now. This very first, and extremely tough stage gave us an opportunity to work easier and faster afterwards.

Euroradio: Under which criteria did you choose the actresses?

Mikalaj Khalezin: I conducted two major castings. The first question to the contenders was whether they were ready to speak about themselves. I had not read any CVs before this on purpose. I was interested in another thing: to which extent a person is open for information, how sincere and professional she is. We talked about their life stories a lot and when I saw that there was a "story of overcoming" in an actress' life, I knew she was capable of feeling and understanding. This is why we looked for such stories, and in the end of the play the actresses tell some complicated stories, this time from their own lives.

Euroradio: What is there in the performance to attract the Polish audience?

Mikalaj Khalezin: I wouldn't divide the audience to "Polish" and "non-Polish". Recently I have watched the movie "Mystery in My Eyes". The movie depicts an Argentinean story but I found many useful, intelligent, touching and lively things there for myself, the story really gripped me. It's the same here. Of course, I cannot judge my own performance, it would have looked weird. However, I have an impression that we managed to find an algorithm which could attract the people in the audience.

Euroradio: Will the prototypes of the "Time of Women" be present in the audience?

Mikalaj Khalezin: There will be five women here today, and several men, who are directly connected with that, and also their parents. They will watch all this. I don't know how they will take it. It is interesting for me as a playwright and a director, I want to see what these emotions will be like. However, as a human, I wouldn't want my friends, the people who are close to me, to go through these hard moments once again.