Over the last year SplitMoon Theatre has been developing a new stage production of Dostoevsky’s “Demons” - a 21st-century take on this important novel, in the run-up to the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution. Join us for rehearsed readings from the play, followed by a discussion with director Peter Sturm, translators Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, and members of the cast, chaired by Susan Richards, founding editor of Open Democracy Russia. With the rise of religious and political extremism, coupled with rising tensions between Russia and the West, the humour and satirical bite of Demons was never more relevant. In English.
DIRECTOR/ DRAMATISER: Peter Sturm - initially trained as an actor at the Schauspiel-Akademie Zurich and worked in repertory companies in Germany and Switzerland, including a notable production of The Brothers Karamazov in Zurich. Commissioned by the Theatre of Lucerne to adapt Dostoevsky’s Demons in German, he went on to adapt and produce Dostoevsky’s The Grand Inquisitor and The Dream of a Ridiculous Man. For SplitMoon he has also created: Brecht’s In the Jungle of Cities (Arcola Main Studio). Writer and director: Au Litho, The Bell-Ringer of Lilybaeum (Theatro Technis). Killer of the Sun (Rose Bankside), Dionysus Unbound (Bridewell), and a 20 min film Alexander the Great.
Translators: Richard Pevear and Larissa Volohonsky - have together translated works by Fyodor Dostoevsky, Leo Tolstoy, Mikhail Bulgakov, Nikolai Gogol, Anton Chekhov, Boris Pasternak, and Nikolai Leskov. Their translation of Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov received the PEN Translation Prize for 1991; their translation of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina was awarded the same prize in 2002. Most recently they have been collaborating with playwright Richard Nelson on: Turgenev’s A Month in the Country, Gogol’s Inspector, and Chekhov’s Cherry Orchard.
Susan Richards is a founder of openDemocracy.net's Russia section and author of Lost and Found in Russia and Epics of Everyday Life. She is now writing a book based on stories that have surfaced in Russia since the fall of communism.