Oxygen

It is difficult to perceive this performance as an everyday theatre piece, even not as an avant-garde one, however, it is very close to contemporary impressions about night life in a crazy megapolis and it corresponds to the new sense experience in general. The Oxygen does not need stage setting, specially designed scenery or props – a platform on a dance floor in a night club is much more suitable. (...)
The latest decalogue by Vyrypaev leads the viewer obviously far from the Holy Scripture, nevertheless, just from the chaotic amorality of the new generation something like a religion has arisen. A man needs oxygen for his life – but it is not the oxygen found in fresh air of the countryside, but the one that is burnt by a human body and provides him/her with the energy for the life in top gear.
Roman Dolzhansky, Kommersant

The performances of the theatre Teatr.doc represent a scream of protest of an enthusiastic human being against an attempt to level out everything, and against an attempt to dissolve personalities in the collective ocean of politically correct protoplasm. Oxygen, the only performance from the present repertory with no relation to the technique in its literal sense, this is something like a key to understanding the idea for which a fight is going on within these walls.
(...)
By the way, the story of Sasha and Sasha is only a model for excellent rap dialogues about the commandments of Moses and Christ, about Jerusalem in heaven and on earth, about New York and the United Arab Emirates. The lines in the dialogues of the Oxygen are catching and aphoristic, many of them may become popular in a short time. Arabian dances on the music by Sting reflect the world popularity of orientalism – not the “sleeping East“ that inspired Goethe, but the unconscious popular admiration of the “Taliban movement“, which is against the idols of the present civilisation.
Vladimir Zabuluev, Alexej Zenzinov, Russian Journal

HE and SHE – they interrupt each other by contradictory arguments, they collect reasons and counter-reasons, all of which are compelling until a new one is presented. In the end, we follow the tragic image of disoriented characters, who struggle for breath without understanding something important, the sensations of lowering of all values, “chaos in the heads“, primary amorality and tragic unsolvability of contradictions are created. The ideological centre of the performance lies in the overwhelming need of people for oxygen, which makes the basis, sense and reason for life. The text of Vyrypaev gives in this sense a kind of answer to ever more frequent thoughts that our lives lack “drive” and the country merges into a stifling atmosphere.
Natalia Serova, Russian Journal

Any hierarchy is cancelled and the pathos of contemporary drama on its death bed in this most miserable world has been changed into the pathos of agony. Expanding without any limits, uncorrelated Vyrypaev-like ego knows only one thing for certain: oxygen is needed for life and the desire for it does not mix with morality. Breathe or lose! This is the generation statement that we would rather avoid, but it is impossible, though the statement sometimes sounds artificially, but in some moments it has strength and some- times it is formidably talented. However, the overwhelming impression from the „Oxygen“  is its absolute denial of any earnestness. In the rebellion of Vyrypaev there is no megalomania (as was the case by rock-idols), but rather rap-like carelessness.
Marina Davydova, Kommersant

Biblical commandments create the structure of all the compositions of the Oxygen. It is a theme to which variations are tied: loose and at the same time all turned inside out, like in jazz, complex and as if far from its theme, nevertheless, always returning to it. It is difficult to imagine the possibility of creating a coherent piece of drama by using quotations from the New Testament, slang, non-standard vocabulary, inventively observed details from the present everyday life, drugs, terrorist attacks of 9/11, and even the taking of hostages in Moscow. It has proved to be possible.
Alexandra Mashukova, Literaturnaia gazeta