Planned premiere: april 26, 2024.
“We are all nihilists,” according Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, one of the greatest Russian writers of all time, in response to the social processes occurring in his homeland during the last third of the 19th century. However, the term “nihilist” here does not refer to the Nietzschean metaphysical negation, but rather to a distinctly Russian phenomenon—the revolutionary movement of the “sons” who, through critical examination, rejected the traditions of the “fathers” generation.
For example, the movement depicted by the “gang of five” in one of his major novels, Demons, which serves as the starting point for Macedonian director Dejan Projkovski’s exploration of the human soul, much like the author himself did. Projkovski is intrigued by the question of how, just as sacred music can distinguish the angelic from the demonic by a quarter tone, certain strings within a person can be plucked to turn an “angel” into a “demon.” He investigates how a movement, initially aimed at improving society, can, through the misinterpretation of the guiding ideologies, lead its participants to become bloodthirsty killers, monstrous beings that devour both themselves and their ideals.
But whether there is a way out of this state of mind, whether it is possible to recreate the angel in humanity, is something Projkovski presents on stage as a journey through the heart and soul.
Director: Dejan Projkovski
