Marius Ivaškevičius "RUSSIAN NOVEL" (Dir. Oskaras Koršunovas)

A drama in two acts Playwright Marius Ivaškevičius’s play tells the story of the drama unfolding within the family of writer Leo Tolstoy in the final months before his death. However, Tolstoy himself does not appear in the play or the performance. The central axis of this drama is Tolstoy’s wife, Sophia Andreyevna. In the play, her love is passionate, reckless, inhuman, all-creating, and all-destroying. The playwright and the director have infused the character of Tolstoy’s wife with the traits of many of the writer’s female characters (most notably Anna Karenina). One of the main characters is Chertkov, a real historical figure who became a friend of the Tolstoy family, gained the writer’s unconditional trust, became his "man – secret weapon," and turned the writer’s family life into a living hell during his final years. On the train tracks—or rather, the tracks of history, which serve as a fundamental image and metaphor in the performance—cultural stereotypes, illusions, jealousy, the myth of genius, and "Russianness" are crushed by the locomotive of history and the present day. According to Oskaras Koršunovas, "Russian Novel" is a multi-layered play that opens up many themes. It explores the intersections of creativity and real life, speaks about femininity and what it means for a woman to live with a genius (and for a genius to live with a woman), and analyzes political themes that become particularly relevant as Europe faces a rising wave of the radical right. It must be added: and as today's Russia becomes a fascist state. This heavily impacts the context of the performance. In the context of Russia's war against Ukraine and geopolitical and political shifts, the play has taken on new meanings, becoming even more relevant and controversial. M. Ivaškevičius wrote this play in Russian. It was first staged in 2017 at the Mayakovsky Theatre in Moscow and was awarded the Golden Mask for the best play performed in Russia that year. Today, this sounds almost ironic.

Adresas: Vilniaus senasis teatras