Elena Novikova

A retired detective is trying to catch a serial killer who uses Russian letters to find his victims.

The beautiful Tanya returns to her small mining town, after supposedly working as a model in Moscow. She decides to marry her shy school sweetheart Mishka, who now works in the mine. The miners finally receive some pay, but Mishka still ends up with no money to buy his bride a gift, so he seeks the help of his perpetually drunk buddy Garkusha. Mishka's poor working-class family all help to put on a fine wedding with copious amounts of vodka, even though they are suspicious of Tanya's occupation in Moscow, and of her connection with her Mafia ex-boyfriend Borodin.

In a World War II German labor camp, five female prisoners on the eve of escape are facing a tough choice: to identify and give away the murderer of a guard officer to the camp directorate or to die on the gallows. The youngest woman is the main suspect as she had been in an illicit relationship with that officer. Only hours remain for the women to make their fateful decision.

Strong-willed Olga Nikolaevna is the boss at home and at work. The only one who breaks the order in her life is her son-in-law-like nothing else. Then one day, the flurry of mutual claims becomes so great that right on a family holiday, the situation gets out of control.

Just yesterday Evgeni Vetrov had a completely different life. He had money, perfect reputation, was respected by his colleagues and most of all - he had love; but apparently he had enemies as well. One day Vetrov's wife was killed, being the only suspect he was soon found guilty. Now the only thing he can do is run, run, in order to find the real killer.

Captured in "explicit polaroid pictures", the characters of Ravenhill's play are a former social rebel who served time for assassination, his ex–girlfriend who made it "from hippie to yuppie", a nightclub stripper abused by her boyfriend, a gay man dying of AIDS and a sex slave he bought. This is a play about the vicissitudes of love, which, "without knowing shame", can arise from any "bullshit".

According to Elena Novikova, from birth, every woman hears this infernal mechanism: "the ticking clock." This ticking dictates when to get married, when to have children, how to look, and where to be. By 30, this sound becomes deafening, by 45, it becomes background noise, and by 56, Novikova claims, zen finally sets in. Elena dissects every stage of the female "obstacle course": from beauty standards, ageism, maternal exploits, to menopause.