As paradoxical as it may sound, N.V. Gogol’s “Dead Souls” is a new material for the Maly Theatre. In the pre-revolutionary repertoire there were five different performances based on the immortal Gogol’s poem, but they were not particularly remarkable in history of the Maly Theatre. At a later time theatre didn’t address this material, so it meant to start from scratch. “For me, - says the performance director Aleksey Dubrovsky, - including Gogol’s brilliant sense of humor one of the main themes of performance, oddly enough, is loneliness. Having re-read carefully the poem I revealed that almost all the main characters have several words or even soliloquies about it. And Chichikov in poem’s conclusion says that he was up to this fraudulent combination only in order “to have wife and children and to discharge his duties as a human being”. Add to this “roving” over Russia souls of dead peasants and lonely “troika, swift as a bird”, which “shall one day force all nations, all empires to stand aside”, and to which they give the way, and the phrase “dead souls” begins to make more sense.

Performance Director – Honoured Artist of Russia, Laureate of the Russian Government Award Aleksey Dubrovsky

Set Designer – Laureate of the Russian Government Award Maria Utrobina

Composer - People's Artist of Russia Grigory Gobernik

Lighting Designer - Honoured Worker of Culture of Russia Andrey Izotov