“This play has the structure of a manifesto and there is a temptation to transform it into a political representation, even more so nowadays, in this country, in this city. And the reason is obvious: greed and boorishness roam far and wide, daily life is turning into a nightmare, and the mob – dark and scary, just waiting for the order to “Go get them” – is supported, strangely, by those in power. When I read the play it became obvious that I want to stage it in Petersburg. It is a very cruel city. And since I started to work on the show, the situation worsens by the day…

Yet I stand convinced that this story about people is a story about love… As here is what becomes important: an angel is sent to the man in trouble. And it is Helver. The guardian angel. A strange angel, indeed, a difficult angel. An angel that you must, in the end, return.

The play lacks compromise and the show – do not delude yourself – will be challenging for the spectator. I have no intentions to transform it into something more “comfortable”, it would be foolish, it would be straight forward awkward. I would like to make it real. And this reality, I believe, will affect the viewer. I am certain that this play is about “light”: you should miss beloved eyes and hands, warmth, silence, the lack of bright light, your favourite music, and silence. What happens between distinct events, between moments of action, what you would rather cherish? It is not a fresh truth, but it is a truth…” Aleksandr Bargman 

"Vilkvist’s play transports us in time to the beginning of the century when Europe is plagued by a mass insanity. That is when that overwhelming fear surfaced and it still roams the present, even with all the generations that were born until today. At the atrocious historical intersection, those who had the power understood that a stupid and ignorant crowd, but well fed and intoxicated with free schnapps can be manipulated with incredible ease. Toss a piece of bread and say “You are smart” and the mob will tear apart anyone in its path.

Aleksandr Barman’s play, beyond all its great artistic qualities, is a blunt response to the fact that present-day Petersburg still deals with protests against world famous painters’ exhibitions, bottles break museum windows, and a children’s oncology hospital barely avoids closure. An answer as to what all this may lead to."

K. Pavliucenko - Nevskoe vremea

"Although in director Aleksandr Bargman’s view the play depicts the current socio-political situation in the country and in Petersburg, it conveys more about love. It is difficult to express – not interpret – the feeling the backstage a glimpse of the fascist movement is unravelling, which replaced music with deafening screams, but to paint such a bright feeling on the terrible backdrop of the play’s temporal and geographical setting is a great challenge."

M. Gablia – Megalopolis, the life of the city

“Helver’s Night” is a “story in two” – Bargman’s play casts only Denis Pianov and Oksana Bazilievici. However, many more characters join the tragic dialogue, as the story unfolds the past and the present of the main characters, the people that passed through or are still present in their lives, as well as those that have surely faded out of it. As there will be no more life left.

Bargman’s show is not only about how one can become cannon fodder: it is about the relationship between confusion and aggressiveness, about the terror instated when stupidity leads mankind, about how patience often leads to worse than impatience, and about how man, lead solely by guilt, can draw those close in a vortex of unpredictability. Bazilievici and Pianov act Vilkvist’s play with desperation and truthfulness, with no mercy for their characters, themselves or spectators.

E. Ometinskaia – In the loved town.