|Seryozha|

We wanted to make Anna Karenina as another Bunin’s “sunny strike” – fast, gentle and horrific. Our production of Seryozha though is not Anna Karenina. It is based on the great novel, I would even say, on the distant motives of the novel. There will be no Levin, no Kitty, no Steve Oblonsky, no haymaking, kvass drinking, and sweaty shirts, no juicy sterlets, and oysters in the restaurant. You will not see the terrific scene of Karenin visiting the lawyer and maybe experiencing humiliation for the first time in his life.  There will be no racing, no fall of Vronsky and death of Frou-Frou, and, generally speaking, there will be no train… just a little toy. In a word, it will all be Tolstoy alike, but smaller and shorter. Like a Fragment of it. And Seryozha is the son of Anna Karenina, a boy, who is also eight years old, and standing in the center of this “sun strike” when everything is messed up not only in the House of Oblonsky, but overall.

At the heart of the production is Anna Karenina, the novel by Leo Tolstoy, as well as The Life and Destiny by Vasily Grossman, and The Questions by Leo Rubinstein written especially for this production.