The Different One

A sworn bachelor reviews marriage advertisements because he promised his mother 12 years ago to get married. Suddenly, he stumbles upon something very intriguing: "A young, beautiful, wealthy and secure woman seeks an ugly and poor man to make him happy." And so, He decides to meet Her. Perhaps because, as he thinks, there is very little chance of success. It turns out that someone advised the beauty, who until then had lived only for her own pleasure, to do at least one good deed for another person – to make them happy. And thus begins the story of a man left in the rear of the front line of love turning into a victor. The beauty loves a monster, and instead of turning into a prince, it becomes a real monster – insolent, fussy and demanding. Because happiness, as the hero (and the audience) realizes, is a very great trial for a weak person. The play "The Different One" is defined by its author Alexey Slapovsky as a "comitragedy" – a genre as contemporary as it is difficult. What of what happens in this story is truth and what is fiction? Which of all the characters is real and which is different? And is The Different One really different? Among his twelve commandments, the dramatist Alexey Slapovsky places at the top: 1. Love not the theater that already exists, but the one that will be. 2. Treat dramaturgy as literature. And he advises that in a contemporary play the scheme "three plus two" should operate: three actresses and two actors. And the characters should not change their age; they can age by a maximum of ten years.