Das Por­tal (UA)

The traditional Theatre Helios finds itself on its deathbed. Like a drowning man, General director Geldoff fights for his contract to be renewed. Only a successful theatre production could secure the future of the theatre - and so he bets everything on one card and hires a renowned - and expensive - young director to win back the goodwill of the local cultural politicians by having him direct The Portal. Meanwhile, chief dramaturge Eisenstern has plans of his own. He is planning a coup d'état to get the theatre, which he sees as misguided, under his leadership. And so the two of them tug at the theatre production in a grey-eminence-like manner. But that's just one of umpteen minor, major (and very major) sideshows in this shrill tour de farce. In the melee world of the theatre, hardly anyone thinks of anything but themselves. And so, preoccupied by petty wars, it completely escapes the staff members that Geldoff, who is increasingly under pressure, summons the "great old man", King Chtulu, in the theatre's basement as a last resort - and thus opens a portal through which demons flow into the building, enter the actors' bodies and ultimately transform the theatre into a truly Dionysian space ... This double and triple exaggeration of all theatrical clichés is a homage to the complex, often paradoxical, beautiful and cruel entity of "theatre" as a place where the pursuit of the highest sometimes collides crashingly with the pursuit of the lowest.