Adelina Gizatullina

“Frida: Life in Color” is the premiere on the Simonov Stage of the Eugene Vakhtangov Theatre. Typically, a production is born first in the director’s imagination, but in this case, the creative process was inspired by actress Adelina Gizatullina, who first captivated the playwright, then the director, and finally her fellow actors.

Every actor harbors secret dreams of coveted roles, yet not everyone gets the chance to realize them. For Adelina Gizatullina, one such dream was to portray Frida Kahlo—the outstanding Mexican artist. The odds were slim, as no play about her existed. But instead of waiting, the actress sought out a writer. Nika Simonova, primarily a poet, wrote “Frida: Life in Color” as her first dramatic work, which she rightly calls not a play, but a text—a chronicle of key events in Kahlo’s life, drawn from diaries and biographical sources.

Bringing this chronicle to the stage was the task of Leila Abu-al-Kishk, a recent graduate of Yuri Eremin’s directing workshop at the Shchukin Theatre Institute. For both the director and Adelina Gizatullina, life for Frida represents the story of a rebel who refused to surrender to fate or people. Childhood polio left her a cripple, a youth accident turned her body into a heap of wreckage, followed by a series of grueling surgeries. Painting became her anesthesia, capable of easing both physical and emotional suffering.

Mexican color is suggested subtly in the visual design by Dina Borovik. Two white tulle curtains, hand-embroidered with folk motifs, serve as a concise metaphor for life striving to rise from hospital sheets to the clouds, emphasized by the explosion of color in Frida’s dresses, faithfully reproduced from her paintings. Choreographer Evgenia Lyubashina translated into movement what words cannot convey: the tragedy of the accident, the hopelessness of a love that united Frida and Leon Trotsky. Movement dominates the staging. One of the most striking images is Frida dancing with a white blanket pressed to her chest, inside which lie gray, cold stones instead of a newborn—Frida longed for children but could never become a mother. The clatter as they fall to the floor is enough to awaken even the hardest heart.

All of this is accompanied by joyful and sorrowful music—the melodies of Mexican folk songs, led by musical director and vocal coach Andrey Sergievsky, passionately performed by Polina Chernysheva and Andrey Udalov. This pair, imbued with a mystical energy, functions as both a modern-day chorus and cinematic montage, guiding the audience through Frida’s personal circles of hell.

During that fateful bus accident that collided with a tram, Frida was not alone; her lover Alejandro (Konstantin Beloshapka) was with her. He escaped with minor injuries, while she was confined to bed for months. Unable to endure the trauma, he abandons her—not out of cowardice, but because he cannot confront a love too powerful for him. Years later, Alejandro seeks to return. Frida meets him with all the contempt her proud soul can muster: “I can give myself to anyone with a taste for life—but not you.”

Diego Rivera (Denis Samoylov) is a great artist and consummate womanizer. He recognizes Frida’s talent, intellect, and unconventional beauty, but revolutionary romance alone cannot inspire him—he requires many women. He sincerely believes that “my heart is not a traitor,” a difficult role to portray convincingly. Equally challenging is Maria Volkova as Lupe, Diego’s ex-wife (not the first, by the way), showing how jealousy slowly transforms into compassion for the next woman to fall into his love trap.

Cristina Kahlo (Anastasia Zhdanova) lacks even a fraction of her older sister’s courage. Her only means of survival is to cling to a man: run the household, raise children, endure abuse. Abandoned by her husband, she yields to Diego’s demands. That Frida is his wife matters little—survival is everything.

Perhaps the hardest task fell to Pavel Yudin, who had to break the audience’s preconception of Leon Trotsky as a ruthless revolutionary to portray him as a lonely man still hoping to find a kindred soul.

The more tragic the story, the simpler it must be told. This young team, including not only veteran Vakhtangov actors, embraced Rimas Tuminas’ unwritten rule: “In theatre, victory belongs to those who know how to tell stories.” Here, they seem to have succeeded.