The heroines of Ingmar Bergman's script - Charlotte and Eva - have transcended the author's film and are now embodied in the play by the young director of the "Sovremennik" theater, Ekaterina Polovtseva. In 1978, the world first saw the duet of Ingrid Bergman and Liv Ullmann in the film "Autumn Sonata", while on the Russian stage, the premiere of the story of family and, in general, human relationships shook the theatrical world in March 2012. The fully recreated atmosphere of autumn tranquility, sometimes unsettling, sometimes calming - is the merit of the set design by Emil Kapelyush. An empty space on the left side of the stage and a narrow wooden house, reminiscent of a pavilion and extending far away, seem to dissolve behind the scenes. The autumn landscapes become a backdrop to the dialogues between mother Charlotte (Marina Neelova) and daughter Eva (Alena Babenkо): scattered dry leaves quietly rustling under the actors' feet, lonely rope swings, an abandoned boat hidden deep in the stage. Harsh loneliness is the key motif of Ekaterina Polovtseva's production. An intimate story of two closest people, a very personal plot not about hatred, but about love. The material taken by the director is incredibly relevant, as many painful stories from childhood are connected with complex "parent-child" relationships. The play absorbs numerous problems: already existing in the characters' lives and just drawn in the audience's consciousness. It is both love and deaf misunderstanding, the inability to show tenderness towards another person solely due to one's own selfish ambitions. Bergman's heroines, once realized in the film, demonstrate relationships that remain a mystery even to the actors themselves. The question of why mother and daughter cannot be with each other perplexes the actresses in the leading roles and gives them new ground for stage reflection. Eva's resentment towards her selfish mother, the unbearably heavy circumstances of her little son's death cannot overshadow her surprisingly sincere feelings for her sister Elena (Elena Plaksina), to...