©  Alyona Besser

The style of the performance is defined as a “concertbutnotaconcert.” It contains a great deal of music, which lives and enters into conflicts with the hero, and even runs out of control. It twinkles like a dead small star, it creaks as might unoiled hinges. It tears around like a madman, from peasant dances to Tom Waits, drowning out the confession of this “ridiculous man.” It seems as if he was drawn by Brueghel — a grimacing cripple, a carnival fool, who unexpectedly emerges as the main character of a mystery play. This story of a soul that fell but was healed, this dream of a ridiculous hero, is played out as a nervous, irritable Brechtian Song the day before suicide is committed. Musical instruments, barely visible stairs, a ring of light (is it a half moon or the half barrel of a gun imagined by a feverish, sleepy mind?). This is Peter Brook’s “empty space.” A hero in outer space. A hero in the Void. Behind his closed eyes, as in the grave, nothing but darkness and his own emptiness. What will happen when he awakes?

[Stage director] Malyshev moves within the text of this fantastic story by Dostoevsky in the same way as the story’s protagonist does in the end — barefoot on broken glass. The shards of a broken wineglass are for the protagonist, exposed nerves are for the actor. “The Demons,” a music group concocted by Malyshev for this “concert-but-not-quite-concert”… sounds unassumingly ominous. There’s no conflict with Dostoyevsky, no attempt to clear some ground between oneself and the ridiculous man. This is voluntary self-torture, which is very Russian at its core. It would seem that the mysterious Russian soul cannot exist without suffering. And that means Dostoevsky.

Elena Smorodinova, Expert

Opening night: November 2, 2015

Running time: 45 minutes without intermission

Ticket price range: 1000—7000 rub.