Tieffe Teatro Milano • Wallenstein Betriebs GmbH • Dostoevskij • THE DEMONS • Peter Stein home      about      cast      tour      video      galleries      press      contact      about "I Demoni" won the Ubu's award as "The show of the year" 2009, one of the major theatrical acknowledgments in Italy A 12-hour show with 30 actors staging, a pièce taken from a 950-page book worldly renowned as a masterpiece of literature: these are some of the numbers with which Peter Stein’s last masterwork introduces itself: THE DEMONS from Fedor Dostoevskij novel, performed as a workshop last may in the beautiful venue of San Pancrazio, a small ancient village in Umbria, in the Italian countryside, has already became part of the history of theatre. There’s no doubt: the great German director, known all over the world for having won on the stage of the Schaubüne in Berlin, and then in Italy where he lives since he got married to the Italian actress Maddalena Crippa, a lot of enormous challenges, is now achieving a new unexpected goal. In fact, THE DEMONS is a show that goes over what we normally put under the name of theatre: the Italian actors play here as if they were in a movie, like Russians often do, and the spectators become part of the play they walk throughout for the whole day, so that at the end they have been not just watchers of it but they have lived within the story with the characters they are called to sit next to. In this way it is easier to recognize within ourselves the "demons" with whom Dostoevskji would like to represent our human illnesses and who have made sick his generation. A generation of which we can call us sons. It’s because of all the affords made to pursue this hard work , that now Peter Stein, with his new producer Tieffe teatro from Milan, led by the director Emilio Russo, is going to travel all over the world, in all the major theatres and festivals, to perform his awesome show, such as the Lincoln Center Festival in New York, the Hollandfestival in Amsterdam, the Athens Festival, the Wiener Festwochen in Wien, the Festival d’Automne in Paris; Ravenna Festival and Napoli Teatro Festival in Italy, and in addiction some big Italian venues in Milan and Turin. The Demons described by Fëdor Dostoevskij represent nothing but the diseases and madnesses of a young generation, that had lost its faith in religion, and had become a victim of ideology. A generation grown inside a climate of indifference, without any goal and orientation in values and nevertheless with a strong feeling for life and full of illusions to be starting a new world, with a New Man. Dostoevskij saw very clearly where Russian society was going to go, as we would have seen 50 years later with stalinism. Even more: What the author is describing here is a preview of what was going to be the modern thought, and its being materialistic, rational, nichilistic, ready to put everything under doubt. In this dark landscape, he tells us stories of sweet and cruel human relationships. He introduces us a huge range of different human beings meeting each other in complicated situations of life, and that are all looking one for the other without meeting themselves, with the result of murders, suicides, madness. But inside the story we can also find humour and a funny point of view on life. My adaptation of the text for the theatre (in consideration of Casdorf, Dodin, Wajda’s versions of it) would like to represent almost the whole novel and its characters, therefore we will play for 9 hours, which would became 12, with 4 pauses of 15 minutes e 2 hours for lunch and dinner. I’ll be on the stage with the actors to accompany the spectators throughout the show, explaining things and helping with the changes of scene or during the pauses, and of course, heading how to move in the different locations. Peter Stein From italian press: "Rileggere Dostoevskij con un gruppo così affiatato è un’esperienza destinata a restare nella storia del teatro." Franco Quadri, La Repubblica, 25 maggio 2009 "Reread Dostoevskij with such a close group of actors is an experience that will for sure be written for ever in the history of the theatre" "Nello spettacolo... tutto è chiaro, evidente, scolpito. In un arco temporale di dodici ore, le scene di vibrante intensità sono innumerevoli, ed è dove rifulge il lavoro con gli attori. Indicibile finezza interpretativa di Elia Schilton, una ilare caricatura di Marx, e di Maddalena Crippa, mai così grande". Franco Cordelli, Il Corriere della sera, 25 maggio 2009 "Inside the show everything is clear, evident, engraved. Within the duration of 12 hours, there are a lot of scenes of vibrating intensity, and it is there that actors’ work shine more. Elia Schilton is an amusing portrait of Karl Marx, Maddalena Crippa is greater than ever..." "Peter Stein ha fatto una traduzione e un adattamento già in qualche modo consoni agli interpreti (più di 25) che aveva individuato, ha lavorato con loro intensamente e ha preparato questo nuovo capolavoro, un’esperienza totale che quasi supera il teatro cui convenzionalmente siamo abituati, e va anche al di là del cinema" Gianfranco Capitta, Il Manifesto, 27 maggio 2009 "Peter Stein has done a translation and an adaptation that suit perfectly each actor (they are more than 25), he worked with them very hard: the result is a masterpiece, a hit of the theatre of last years: an experience that goes over the theatre we are used to, and likely over a lot of cinema works..." "Affatto elitario, teatro per tutti, che tiene col fiato sospeso per i suoi tragici antieroi, sentinelle tristi di una società in dissolvenza. E che dimostra quanto la qualità faccia di ore, attimi fuggenti senza noia" Rossella Battisti, L’Unità, 25 maggio 2009 It isn’t at all a show for the few, it is theatre for everyone: a breathtaking show because of its anti-heros, and its sad characters of a dissolving society. And that demonstrates how quality transforms in quick and absolutely boreless minutes a deal of a lot of hours...