The Karamazovs

In a pitch black lounge which, with its corporate desks, marble facing, chesterfield sofas and plasma screens showing the actors’ expressions in real time, resembles nothing less than the anteroom to a VIP mausoleum, the murdered Karamazov “père” is laid out in a high-tech solarium. Bizarre figures parade by to strange music: everything from Russian pop to ballads by Freddie Mercury and Nick Cave. The controversial production from Moscow’s historic Art Theatre on stage outside Russia for the first time after an invitation from the Onassis Stegi.

Extreme characters and extreme relationships. A police thriller and courtroom drama surrounding a cold-blooded patricide. Erotic intrigues and fiery speeches on justice, ethics, free will, faith, pleasure and debauchery. In “The Brothers Karamazov” (1880), Dostoyevsky explores the contradictory complexities of human nature through the story of the brutal Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov and his sons.

Aesthetically unconventional, politically edgy and unsuitable for minors, Konstantin Bogomolov’s production updates the “Brothers Karamazov” from late 19th-century Russia and the abolition of serfdom to the modern bourgeois world of Russia’s oligarchs to lash with black humor the country’s current social and moral decline. The word ‘Brothers’ has been removed from the title and the youngest Karamazov is played by a female actor; because civil strife doesn’t blight a single family or men only—it’s a blight on all humanity.