Wives
by Elena Isaeva
A waiting room. Five women. One love. A crucial encounter.
Natalia Goncharova, Sofya Tolstaya, Anna Dostoyevskaya, Elena Bulgakova, Olga Knipper-Chekhova – muses and legends who entered the pages of history through their love, devotion and service to their writer husbands. What would have become of those geniuses if they hadn’t had understanding – or, on the contrary, unsympathetic – women standing beside them – or, on the contrary, slipping away? What would have become of these women if they hadn’t had these geniuses in their lives?
Letters, diaries, novels, novellas, stories and poems – and behind them real people, distressed and passionate. From fragments of memory, from flashes of past life, love stories are formed. Five different but equally sincere women await their one and only to join him on that final journey. Recalling what they’ve been through, they return to the past once more, becoming fully aware of their marriages, their hopes and their feelings.
The eternal questions of the value and meaning of matrimony, of tolerance and forgiveness, of acceptance and unity, of selflessness and commitment. Of the ability to understand and indulge, to cherish and trust, to be proud and simply to love.
Wives of the Genius is the story of how loves conquers and rejects death.
Production team:
Director – Maria Romanova
Set and Costume Designer – Yana Glushanok
Light Designer – Denis Solntsev
Movement Director – Rimma Sarkisyan
Music Selection – Vladimir Bychkovsky
Speech Instructor – Evgenia Kirillova
Video Art – Alexander Malyshev
Stage Managers – Valeria Vasilkova, Ekaterina Zatolokina, Alyona Parshina
CAST:
Natalia Goncharova – Natalia Shulina
Sofya Tolstaya – Olga Afanasyeva
Anna Dostoyevskaya – Maria Russkikh
Olga Knipper – Maria Valeshnaya
Elena Bulgakova – Eseniya Rayevskaya
The production features fragments of Metropolitan Antony Surozhsky’s lecture “On Love and Marriage”
The production makes use of music by J. S. Bach, F. Chopin, L. Tolstoy, A. Part, O. Karavaichuk, R. Kocherzhevsky
Duration: 1 hour and 40 minutes.
Premiered 19 January 2018.
Recommended for audiences 16 and up.
