The creative team of the Issyk-Kul Regional Musical Drama Theater named after Kasymaly Jantoshov of the Kyrgyz Republic presented the play "The White Ship," staged in a modern version, at the II Theater Festival of the member countries of the International Organization of Turkic Culture (TURKSOY).
On the stage, there was an ordinary bathtub surrounded by many shabby doors—such an unexpected scenographic decision emphasized the lack of comfort in the lives of people at the cordon and simultaneously served as an allegory of the boy's unattainable dream of a white ship, which would one day stop in these places, and from which his father would come ashore.
The play "The White Ship" was once performed on the stage of the National Drama Theater named after Alp Arslan in a production by Turkmen actors who brought the actions of the play as close as possible to the text of Chingiz Aitmatov's novella. Their colleagues from Kyrgyzstan took a different path.
It should be noted that Chingiz Aitmatov's dramaturgy is so powerful that it is interesting in all versions, and the Turkmen audience, having become acquainted with the work of Kyrgyz actors, once again felt boundless pain for the Kyrgyz boy with a pure and vulnerable soul.
The audience greeted the Kyrgyz troupe with enthusiastic applause, appreciating the original techniques used to convey the touching story of the boy's short life at the cordon.