{"id":529085,"date":"2026-03-27T23:37:53","date_gmt":"2026-03-27T20:37:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reform.news\/?p=529085"},"modified":"2026-03-28T11:53:26","modified_gmt":"2026-03-28T08:53:26","slug":"bykau-s-khutar-among-winners-as-mahilyow-theatre-festival-m-rt-kantakt-announces-results","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/bykau-s-khutar-among-winners-as-mahilyow-theatre-festival-m-rt-kantakt-announces-results","title":{"rendered":"Byka\u016d\u2019s \u201cKhutar\u201d Among Winners as Mahilyow Theatre Festival \u201cM.@rt.kantakt\u201d Announces Results"},"content":{"rendered":"
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This year, International Theatre Day coincided with the finale of the 19th youth forum \u201cM.@rt.kantakt,\u201d which for a week turned Mahilyow into a center of theatrical life. However, the festive atmosphere could not conceal evident shifts in the country\u2019s cultural space: the forum, once known for its diversity and search for new forms, has this year definitively acquired a Russian accent.<\/p>\n

Out of seventeen productions in the program, ten came from Russia, leaving Belarusian groups in the role of hosts who are increasingly in the minority on their own stage.<\/p>\n

This numerical dominance was also reflected in the jury\u2019s decisions: the main experts\u2019 prize goes<\/a> to Saint Petersburg with the production \u201cLada or Joy\u201d<\/b> by the Small Drama Theatre. Audience sympathies went to \u201cThe Lady with the Dog\u201d<\/b> by the Moscow Gubernsky Theatre. Even the closing of the forum took place under the banner of the Smolensk Chamber Theatre, which presented \u201cThe Queen of Spades\u201d in a vivid, professional, but classically Russian interpretation.<\/p>\n

However, an important development of the festival was the decision of the youth jury. Their award went to the production \u201cKhutar\u201d by the Belarusian State Puppet Theatre. This staging, based on the novella Vasil Byka\u016d<\/b> \u201cThe Sign of Misfortune,\u201d was brought to the stage by one of the most prominent Belarusian directors Yauhen Karniah<\/b>.<\/p>\n

At the center of the plot of \u201cKhutar,\u201d which the press has described, among other things, as a \u201cpsychological thriller,\u201d is \u201cthe story of ordinary people struggling to survive and making a difficult moral choice on the edge of life and death. In this choice, all shades of the human soul are revealed, and scenes from the past emerge, when the characters also had to make decisions under difficult circumstances\u2026 And the farmstead [of Stsiapanida and Piatrak] becomes the only silent witness to unbearable trials and a symbol of the resilience of the human spirit.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

Nearly the entire troupe of the theatre is involved in the production.<\/p>\n

The 19th youth forum \u201cM.@rt.kantakt\u201d took place from March 20 to 27. Its program was dominated by productions based on Russian classics: Aleksandr Pushkin<\/b>, Anton Chekhov<\/b>, Nikolai Gogol<\/b>.<\/p>\n

It should be recalled that \u201cM.@rt.kantakt\u201d has been held since 2006. Until 2020, it was led by theatre director Andrei Novikau<\/b> and was genuinely international. For comparison, in 2019, the forum hosted 23 theatres and independent theatre groups from ten countries.<\/p>\n

Subscribe to Reform.news cultural updates<\/a> on Telegram<\/b><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This year, International Theatre Day coincided with the finale of the 19th youth forum \u201cM.@rt.kantakt,\u201d which for a week turned Mahilyow into a center of theatrical life. However, the festive atmosphere could not conceal evident shifts in the country\u2019s cultural space: the forum, once known for its diversity and search for new forms, has this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":529084,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sharing_image":{"poster":"https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/69c79709540b5.jpg","width":1200,"height":630,"template":"691142dd","mode":"auto"},"_sharing_image_fieldset":{"dTVKfmI95PYT":"Byka\u016d\u2019s \u201cKhutar\u201d Among Winners as Mahilyow Theatre Festival \u201cM.@rt.kantakt\u201d Announces Results"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[142375,142338],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-529085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-news"],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=529085"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529085\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/529084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=529085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=529085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=529085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}