The novel by a classic of Russian and world literature Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821–1881) The Idiot is one of his main and most popular works, a masterpiece of world culture. The writer worked on it in Geneva, Milan and Florence, and finished his work in 1869. The Idiot serves as a basis for many performances and films, and the main characters of the novel – the naive Prince Myshkin, the pernicious Nastasya Filippovna and the rude Parfyon Rogozhin – have been played by some of the greatest actors. In 1963, a performance based on this work was also staged at The Old Theatre of Vilnius. As the 200th anniversary of Dostoevsky’s birth is approaching, universal attention to his work grows even stronger.
This time, the honour to stage a production based on Dostoevsky's novel The Idiot in our theatre has been given to the practitioner of modern stage direction Agnius Jankevičius. Having proved himself in theatre avant-garde, he does not avoid staging classical works and fruitfully cooperates with our theatre. Jankevičius has this to say about his production: “The famous rock musician and poet Jim Morrison once was asked what the audience really needs and replied: ‘I think that people need something spiritual.’ A buddy of his overheard this and immediately sprayed him with a sip of unswallowed whiskey, unable to keep from laughing. Jim Morrison himself burst into laughter. At that night's concert, he caused a public scandal and, this way, protested against the exploitation of his fictitious image.”
“If we compare this parallel with the plot of Dostoevsky’s novel, the attitude of Prince Myshkin is a quiet protest that generates a powerful, like a tsunami, response in people mired in their passions, although they need something that is modest and spiritual. Capitalist relations affect moral principles, while morality has no effect on capitalism. Such is my mental key to Dostoevsky’s novel The Idiot that will help to ‘dissect’ its stage version at The Old Theatre of Vilnius.” This particular dramatisation of The Idiot will also contain motives of another Dostoevsky’s novel, Demons.
Photographer Laura Vansevičienė
