In retaliation for the theater sacking its director for opposing the war in Ukraine, a Russian actor slit his wrists in front of spectators.
Actor Artur Shuvalov informed the audience in Ulan-Ude, eastern Siberia, that the producers of the play had been “harassing” him and withholding his salary because he had backed the former director Sergei Levitsky.
With a sudden grab of a knife from his pocket, Artur—who is reportedly fighting cancer—announced that his wife, who was also an actor in the program, had also been dismissed.
Proclaiming the theatre’s management team were ‘responsible’ for his death, he started slicing the knife across his wrists, MailOnline reports.
He said: ‘Throughout the year they have tried to fire me from the theatre, humiliate me, deprive me of work and money.
‘Today they signed a statement, they fired my wife Svetlana Polyanskaya.
‘I don’t want to put up with it. But I have no more strength and no more choice.’
He added: ‘I don’t want to hear that artists are “representatives of the oldest professions”.
‘And I believe that our audience is worthy of smart direction, and not as our artistic director says.
‘Please forgive me again. I’m tired. I have no more choice. I want to say just one thing: Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Dyachenko [artistic director], Natalya Nikolaevna Svetozarova [theater director], these people are to blame for my death.’
The audience watched in horror as other members of the cast rushed to try and help the actor.
Artur was taken to hospital and is said to be in a stable condition.
Since the start of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin has imposed censorship laws against ‘discrediting Russian armed forces’.
A number of leading arts figures lost their jobs after criticising the war.