PING-PONG – Valeriy Khazin

PING-PONG

If you reach the page 15 of the play- you won’t be able to break away. A young ambitious table tennis coach, nicknamed Tops, in order to win the sympathy of the young national team’ players comes up with a “detective game”, which, according to his plan, should enthrall his young charges for a month of training in a country-camp. However, the game gets out of the control eventually, subjugates the players and becomes unexpectedly dramatic. Seemingly unharmed and cozy world of adolescent ping pong players explodes. The amusing “Treasure Hunt” turns into something much more serious. How far are the adults willing to go to in their desire to manipulate the teenagers and to govern their lives? What is the price of a social success? How far are the teenagers willing to go in their controversial efforts to resist the grownups and, at the same time, to “reach for the secret” and to grow up as soon as possible? The swift and irreversible vicissitudes make you feel sometimes that it is not the characters who collide in the search for “magic paddle”, but the “magic paddle” itself decides their fate. The game embroils the players in a series of betrayals and real crimes leading to an unpredictable denouement.