Word: oleg
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Pretty much everywhere is a long way from the Presnyakov brothers' hometown of Yekaterinburg deep in the Ural Mountains. But that's O.K. "A life on the go adds grist to our impression mill," says Oleg Presnyakov, 37, as he and his brother, Vladimir, 32, packed for a trip to Berlin to attend an opening of their 2003 play, Playing the Victim. It's a good thing the duo don't mind life on the road. Their increasing popularity as two of the world's hottest young playwrights has made itineraries like Moscow to Sydney via Tokyo, or Boston...
That's quite a change from four years ago, when Oleg and Vladimir were teaching literature and social sciences at the Yekaterinburg State University, writing little-seen dramas and running an amateur theater they founded in the mid-1990s. But in 2002, a staff member of the British Council, an organization that promotes cultural exchanges, watched rehearsals for the brothers' play Terrorism in Moscow and recommended it to the Royal Court Theatre in London. In spring 2003, Terrorism debuted at the Royal Court, the Presnyakovs' first opening outside Russia. It was roundly applauded by critics - London's Guardian newspaper called...
...twosome have a symbiotic relationship would be an understatement. Oleg, the elder, is also the bigger and more garrulous of the pair. Kid brother Vladimir, meanwhile, is slighter and more taciturn, but quick with a smile and a mischievous joke - or an existential musing about the nature of their brotherhood. "We have often wondered if just one of us exists, while the other is just a figment of his imagination," says Vladimir. "Except," adds Oleg, "we never got to sort out which of us is which." That exchange is indicative of how the brothers work on their original and absurd...
...example, the police captain who reconstructs murders gets bumped off - and his murder gets reconstructed by another captain. Including their rewrites, the brothers can't recall how many plays they have penned. "The book of our five favorites was published last year, but there have been more," says Oleg uncertainly...
...claimed the stunt was bought and paid for by Berezovsky, which probably only heightened the rage of the man who had become the FSB's chief--Vladimir Putin. To Putin, a former KGB officer, what Litvinenko had done "was a major act of treason," says former KGB Major General Oleg Kalugin, now an exile in the U.S. after having written about Russia's tilt toward authoritarianism. In his book The Lubyanka Gang, Litvinenko, for his part, said he had gone to Putin before the press conference with proof showing which top FSB officers and high state officials were corrupt. Putin...