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Idea, conception and staging – Iosif Raykhelgauz
Set and costumes – Alexey Tregubov
Music Director – Vera Nikolayeva
Choreographer – Ivan Fadeev
Arrangement – Valery Chernyshev
Assistant director – Filipp Los
Assistant costume designer – Klena Rodkevich
Adaptation of the original text – Ekaterina Kretova
Sound engineer – Diana Grechikhina
Lighting designer – Andrey Smirnov
Assistant choreographer – Svetlana Kuzianina
«Russian Woe» is an original musical version of the great Griboedov's comedy «Woe of Wit», and the deepest respect to the Russian classic is there along with humor, irony, and play on the texts familiar to anyone from lessons of literature at school.
Younger generation of the cast performs all the roles in this comedy including those of elderly characters. The authors who dared to comment on the Woe of Wit are not timid at all to look at historic facts, social pathos and noble protest of the past with the eyes of our contemporaries. Vadim Zhuk’s lyrics for arias, duets and chorus pieces shamelessly intrude into Griboedov’s verse that nowdays sound a bit archaic to be fully compreheded. Music by Serguey Nikitin – tuneful and easy to remember - demands specific way of performance combining principles of drama with dance, singing and plastique. Set designer Alexey Tregubov placed the characters of the play into so called «black box» – a stage masked with black draperies. The characters, and sometimes just silhouettes of their bodies, appear all of a sudden, from nowhere: here is Molchalin’s arm that lives its own life, here are faces of Sophia and Lisa, and here is Chatsky himself riding a horse – you can easily recognize him by his top hat.
The «Russian Woe» is a theatre provocation that makes one find resemblance with the characters on stage and realize that the world of classical literature is not at all an outland, as it may seem to contemporary youngsters.
Characters of «Russian Woe» have very little in common with proverbial Griboedov’s heroes typical for boaring school teacher’s interpretation of the play. And this means that the audience will meet them as if for the first time. Those, who remember the lines of the comedy by heart, may be surprised. Those who have rather vague idea about a hero exclaiming «And who the judges are?» and desperately demanding a coach in the very end of the play will make a discovery: Griboedov is something really actual.
A dozen of singing and dancing actors are permanently on stage. Five of them like coryphaei of the antique choir play the leading parts. The Broadway «swing» principle lies in the basis: each of the young actors has a chance to substitute a coryphaeus, and in moment turn from corps de ballet dancer into a hero.
CAST:
Famusov: Ivan MAMONOV
Chatsky: Alexey GNILITSKY
Molchalin: Dmitry SOTIRIADY
Sophia: Ekaterina DIREKTORENKO
Daniela SELITSKA
Lisa: Tatiana TSIRENINA
Tatiana FASIURA
Russian establishment and public including: guests at the Famusov’s house, serfs, officials, customs officers, fellow travelers and other «fringe” people: Ivan Mamonov, Alexey Gnilitsky, Tatiana Tsirenina, Ekaterna Direktorenko, Alexander Tsoi, Dmitry Sotiriadi, Julieta Gering, Pavel Drozdov, Nikolai Golubev, Julia Skirkina, Marina Zelenskaya, Tatiana Fasiura, Kirill Emelyanov, Daniela Selitska.
Duration of the show – 135 minutes (with one intermission)
Premiere - February 25, 2010 (Vladimir)
March 14, 2010 (Moscow)
EVERYTHING YOU ALWAYS THOUGHT ABOUT WOE OF WIT, BUT WERE AFRAID TO SAY...
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