Theatre of the Society for Macedonian Studies
28 June, 21:15
 
Attempt on dying
by Boris Nikitin
 
One year after the death of his father, author and theater director Boris Nikitin begins to write the story of his ALS disease. The disease had made short work: it took only a year from diagnosis to death. Very early on, the father opened the idea of considering assisted suicide, which is a legal way of dying in Switzerland. It’s a statement that changes everything.
 
In Attempt on Dying Nikitin combines the story of this outing with the story of his own coming-out as a gay man 20 years before and develops a radical and at the same time intimate theatrical evening about what it means to take the step into the public eye, making oneself attackable and vulnerable.
 
Since 2007, Boris Nikitin's theatre works have addressed the question of how we create realities and identities. The real biographies of the actors always play a special, central role. In his solo play, Nikitin now changes sides: as author, director and at the same time performer, he negotiates his own biography for the first time.
 
The play was premiered in Basel in 2019. Since then it has been performed in Zurich, Munich, Beijing, Frankfurt, at the National Arts Festival Makhanda (South Africa), the Wiener Festwochen, Ljubljana, Berlin and Moscow, among others.
In 2021 it was invited to the Swiss Theatertreffen as one of the seven best plays of 2019/2020.
 
Duration: 56'
Language: German
Surtitles: English, Greek

You can watch the discussion with Boris Nikitin HERE .