©  Alexey Kharitonov

In the early Leo Tolstoy novel, written in 1859, the love story of Masha and Sergei Mikhailovich, the unending succession of variations in “family happiness,” is told through extensive monologues of the heroine. On stage, these images are presented in the form of home tea parties, playing the grand piano, the “quiet happiness” between the piano and the window. It’s like musical variations, full of light, sadness, hope, and hopelessness. The questions, which torment the play’s heroine, are not as simple as may seem at first glance: “Happiness is to live for the other… But why for the other, if you don’t even want to live for yourself?..”

Theater reviews rarely use the word “enlightment”, but after seeing “Family Happiness” at the Fomenko Workshop, you want to remember the word “enlightment” in its very basic and simple sense. Your soul lightens.

Inna Solovyeva, Theater magazine

Opening night: September 20, 2000

Running time: 2 hours 40 minutes with one intermission

Upcoming Performances:

Ticket price range: 500—15000 rub.