The Poplars

Old Stage, Gray Hall

This stage production is based on a short, page-long story by the outstanding 1960s Soviet playright Alexander Vampilov. The story is about a phantom, never-actually-happened meeting, the thoughts of which torture the protagonist every spring. The stage production’s creators were inspired by the aesthetics of the “new Soviet wave” films, and used the languages of both theater and film to tell this story of remembrance, of the imminence and necessity of longing, of the sharp smell of poplar trees and the blue twilight of May evenings. The action segues from screen to stage, just like the story’s temporal slices segue between the past and the present and back to the past, overlaying each other.