Dream of A ridiculous Man

Last Friday night I saw the best play that I have ever seen in my entire life.

It was a special production of Dostoevsky's short story "Dream of a Ridiculous Man," and it didn't take place in a theater.

Two of my friends and I met with the other audience members and the director of the theater at this big building (that was actually a production studio), and then the theater director - a 70 year old babushka who was actually dressed like a gangster with a huge Tommy Hilfiger jacket and black pleather pants - walked us a few blocks to the apartment where the play was staged, in an old St. Petersburg apartment that the theater uses just to show this one play. We walked up the narrow staircase to the fifth floor, where we were greeted by one of the actresses who stayed in character the whole time.

The night was also just like the night in the Dostoevsky story - cold, damp, drizzling, not many people on the streets...it was just perfect...

Stepping into the apartment was stepping into the world of Dostoevsky. There was no electricity - only candles - and all of the things in the apartment were genuine artifacts from the 19th century. The 15 audience members sat down in old rickety chairs along the three walls of the room, and then waited in silence for the play to start. It was essentially a monologue, and it was the best acting I have ever seen. When I showed my host mother the programme afterwards she knew exactly who the actor was and was shocked the I was able to get a ticket to see him because he is that fantastic and well known.

The show lasted about an hour and a half. It was a flawless performance. The main character sometimes got really close to the audience members and looked them straight in the eye. At the beginning of the play, we were expecting for him to walk into the room and start, but he emerged from a large old trunk that was sitting in the corner of the room and just started right off with Dostoevsky's words.

Of course, it was all in Russian, but I had read the English text that day and had little problems understanding it.

After the play, the same actress that sometimes emerged as the landlady of the ridiculous man, still in character - ushered us out of the apartment and then my friends and I walked back to the metro station through the streets of old St. Petersburg, raving about the experience. It was really more of an experience than a play. We were thinking about we could get more students in our program to go see one of those performances. Because we also have the phone number of the director of the theater, and if we get 15 people together we could have a special performance just for us.

But, of course, many of the students didn't go because of the price of the tickets, but actually it was only $16 and I would pay $60 at least to see it again, especially because the Russian "Patrick Stewart" was the actor. I also think students were worried that they would not understand it because it is Dostoevsky and all in Russian...