An aesthetic offering of art to reality, running time: 3 h 45 m, prime September 11, 2012
Last performed November 4, 2020
Last performed November 4, 2020
- Author — Vladimir Sirin (Nabokov)
- Text Adaptation and Director — Yevgeny Kamenkovich
- Designer — Vladimir Maximov
- Costume Design — Anna Belan
- Lighting Design — Vladislav Frolov
- Video Projection — Yulia Mikheeva
- Special Effects — Pavel Gorbunov
- Choreographer — Ramune Khodorkaite
- Editor — Maria Kozyar
- Stage Manager — Yulia Verzunova
- Musical Setting — Marina Raku
The Gift is a metanovel by Vladimir Nabokov, the great man of both the Russian and American literature. It was written in Russian, during the Berlin period of the writer’s life, and completed in 1937. The protagonist has Nabokov’s own traits. The Gift is all about balancing between life and words, life and art, reality of everyday life and reality of something else. It’s a rigorous interpretation of the writer’s role and place, and of the creative process as a whole. This performance is yet another confession of the Fomenko Theater’s love for literature, giving life to the words and giving life with the words.
- Stage director Evgeny Kamenkovich is never the one to seek easy paths. Together with the Fomenko Theater’s younger generation of actors, he has risked staging another seemingly unstageable work of literature, Vladimir Nabokov’s The Gift. This work of literature has no meaningful stage history. It is exquisitely ironic, full of intellectual games and impeccable taste — not an easy work for people used to contemporary “easy reading.” This is a novel whose main protagonist is not a specific character, but the text itself, the unique Nabokovian language.
- Irina Alpatova, Teatral
Characters and Cast
- Fyodor Godunov-Cherdyntsev ,
a young writerFyodor Malyshev - The Critic,
his imagined Literary NecessityPolina Kutepova - Yelizaveta Pavlovna ,
his motherSerafima Ogaryova - Konstantin Kirillovich ,
his fatherYury Butorin - Tanya,
his sisterYekaterina SmirnovaDarya Konyzheva - Alexandra Chernyshevskaya ,
writer and friend of Fyodor Godunov-CherdyntsevRoza Shmukler - Alexander Chernyshevskiy ,
writer, her husbandAmbartsum Kabanyan - Frau Klara Stoboy,
landladyLilia Yegorova - Vasilyev ,
editor-in-chief of “The Newspaper” Vladimir Svirsky - Koncheev ,
poetYury Titov - The Writer ,
with a reputationDmitry Rudkov - Boris Schegolyev ,
a wheeler-dealerMikhail Krylov - Schegolyeva Marianna ,
his wifeMaria Kozyar - Zinaida Mertz ,
their daughterMaria Andreeva - Zinaida Mertz,
their daughterYekaterina Smirnova
Plus: Germans: The Salesman, The Guard, The Hospital Servant, Policeman, Five Evangelic Sisters, The Taxi Driver, Bohemians, Athletes, Passengers in a tram; Russians; Poets: Foma Mur, Anna Aptekar, Engineer Kern; Critics: Linyev, Anuchin, “The Monarchist,” The “Bolshevik,” Christofor Mortus; Board of Directors: Professor Kraevich, Gurman, The Treasurer; Aborigines — theatre artists.
- Formerly in the cast:
- Frau Klara Stoboy ,
landladyNadia MerAnn-Dominique Cretta - The Writer ,
with a reputationDmitry Smirnov - Tanya,
his sisterIrina Gorbachyova - Alexandra Chernyshevskaya ,
writer and friend of Fyodor Godunov-CherdyntsevVera Strokova - Marianna Schegolyeva,
his wifeYulia Verzunova
Video
- Kapustnik, part 1. Performances from sixty-sixth to twenty-ninth, January 13, 20190.00 Мб, 01:09:45
- Vladislav Frolov is visiting «The people of the light», DiaTV, 25th of August 2017515.16 Мб, 00:57:08
- New year's greetings, 31th of December 2016446.00 Мб, 00:03:52
- «The Gift», teaser of the performance128.86 Мб, 00:01:47
Archive
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- Afterplay
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- Barbarians
- Beyond the wind
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- What a Pity
- White Nights
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