KNYAZ. Director Konstantin Bogomolov

This time Konstantin Bogomolov, known for his masterful black skits, has set his eye upon “The Idiot”, a classic novel by Fyodor Dostoevsky. In the performance programme we are given a philological clarification of the productions genre: “an attempt of interpretation”.

The actor, who was planned to star as Myshkin, quit his collaboration with the director, so it was time for Konstantin Bogomolov to save the production and play the leading role himself. In the director’s interpretation Myshkin is referred to as Tmyshkin (from the Russian word “t’ma” – darkness; so his title and surname may be understood as “Prince of darkness”).

The performance is set in modern Russian reality, where Rogozhin, Yepanchin (as we remember, Dostoyevsky did make him a general for some reason, so why not), and even Ferdyshchenko – are cops of all ranks – from highest to lowest. The director assembles the scenes with a high hand, blends Dostoyevsky with texts from Thomas Mann’s “Death in Venice”. The novella by the German classic depicting attraction of an aged man to a youth is necessary for Bogomolov as it allows him to laugh at the writers words about “a tear of a child” and its worth.

The director as willfully deals with distributing the roles among the actors. Age means nothing for Bogomolov: mothers are playing girls, daughters turn into mothers. The world has gone nuts, it is insane, if there aren’t any rules at all – why should they exist in theatre.