Omsk Drama Theatre is one of the oldest and largest theatres in Siberia. This year it celebrates its 125th Anniversary. The repertoire consists of plays by both Russian writers and classical work of world literature. The Theatre co-operates with theatres from Italy, Mexico and Japan. The play Woman in the Dunes premiered in July 1996 as a result of co-operation with Japanese artists. The play was awarded three main prizes at the most prestigious theatre festival in Russia – The Golden Mask in Moscow. The awards went to Vladimir Petrov, the director and two actors – Araki Kadzuto and Michail Okunev.

The play is set in a completely closed space and it tells a story of an attempt to understand another human being and to establish common existence for two people coming from totally different worlds. Being the carriers of different cultures, both in reality and in metaphor, they “speak different languages”, are strangers to each other but try to overcome these barriers. They try to communicate between the words of different languages and somehow, beyond them.