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DEAD SOULS

Directed by Roman Kocherzhevsky

Written by Nikolai Gogol

Production: Lensoviet Theatre

 

Nikolai Gogol’s “Dead Souls” tells the story of a disgraced government official, Pavel Chichikov, who by manipulating the inefficiencies of the Imperial Russian government by purchasing the rights of dead serfs from middle-class landowners, is able to amass a personal fortune. Roman Kocherzhevsky’s endlessly inventive reimagining of the classic Russian poem shakes off a layer of dust from the revered work to help us answer questions we all face today. It doesn’t matter whether Kocherzhevsky has dressed his actors in waterproof trench coats or embroidered tailcoats, furnished the stage with delicate antiquities or Danish modern. In the end, as Gogol himself asks of us, “Isn’t there some part of Chichikov in me too?“

Presented in Russian with English subtitles.

Photos by Yulia Smelkina, Yulia Kudryashova

Language: Russian
Translation: English subtitles
Running time:  2h  11min

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Director Roman Kocherzhevsky on the production:


“The work with "Dead Souls" arose out of a desire to understand my youthful impressions of the text. This story is created, on the one hand, from my memories and, on the other hand, from the memories of the characters. Each of them is trying to remember the events depicted in the novel, and since it’s from their memories, time and place are distorted. All of them remember Chichikov in their own way as his visit rekindled in them something long forgotten. Chichikov freeing the landowners from the burden of dead souls, finds himself as one of them, in the same harness of the eternally rushing troika.”

Creative Team

Adapted & Staged by Roman Kocherzhevsky

Costume Design by Sergey Illarionov

Lighting Design by Gidal Shugaev

Stage Manager – Yulia Smelkina

Sound – Faina Makoeva

Cast

 

Pavel Chichikov – Fedor Pshenichny

Manilov – Alexander Novikov

Elizaveta Manilova – Natalia Shamina

Nastasya Korobochka – Anna Kovalchuk

Nozdrev, Pavel Chichikov – Sergey Peregudov

Mikhail Sobakevich, Pavel Chichikov – Vitaly Kulikov

Feodulia Sobakevich – Laura Pitskhelauri

Stepan Plyushkin, the Governor – Sergey Migitsko

The Governor's Daughter – Rimma Sarkisyan

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