"The shadows of the greats confuse me." Performance based on the Nobel speech of Joseph Brodsky (c)

The Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center presents the play "The Shadows of the Greats Confuse Me", staged by Gladstone Mahib and Sergei Shchedrin after Joseph Brodsky’s Nobel speech (Nobel lecture).

Joseph Brodsky read this famous text on humanism in 1987. The thoughts of the great poet of the 20th century echo in the artists and actors of the 21st century: speech can and should be heard by a person of 2021. The space of the Jewish Museum becomes a waiting room where everyone is waiting in line to go up to the “stage” and talk about the value of human life and literature.

The idea of the play belongs to Dmitry Vladimirovich Brusnikin. The speech is read by his students of different generations: graduates of the Moscow Art Theater School from 2003 to 2019, as well as current students of the course of Marina Brusnikina and Sergei Shchedrin.

Gladstone Mahib: “We want to talk about the fact that each person is unique, each person is of great value. And when everyone is valuable, together as a society we become especially big. We become constructive, not destructive.

From Brodsky’s mouth, the text sounds so easy, accessible and logical. But sight-reading this text now is a difficult job of unraveling every thought. We do not have a goal to equate ourselves with a genius, we try to reach out to his words from our time. We read this text phrase by phrase and look for our attitude.

The idea was born from our master Dmitry Vladimirovich Brusnikin. He talked a lot about the Nobel Prize and how important it is for the text to sound louder. He wanted people of all ages to read this text. This is how the idea arose to gather his pupils and students who have not seen the master, but continue his work. "

Sergei Shchedrin: “For me, this text is about freedom - thoughts, self-expression, personality. Perhaps this text is especially important right now. "

(c) Foundation for the Management of Hereditary Property of Joseph Brodsky, 2021

Directors: Gladstone Mahib, Sergey Shchedrin
Artist: Vanya Bowden
Composer: Dima Anikin
Playwright: Andrei Stadnikov
Lighting
Design : Anton Astakhov Video artist: Mikhail Zaikanov
Costumes: Anna Khrustaleva
Choreographer: Ira Ga

Producers: Second Action Theater Company - Daria Verner, Evgeniya Petrovskaya
General Producer: Gladstone Mahib

Performed by Marina Vasilieva, Anastasia Velikorodnaya, Yana Gladkikh, Maria Lapshina, Anastasia Lebedeva, Ivan Litvinenko, Alexey Martynov, Alexander Matrosov, Gladstone Makhib, Pyotr Skvortsov, Anastasia Skorik, second-year students of the Moscow Art Theater School (course of Sergei Shchedrin and Marina Brusnikova) Ilya Baraboshkin, Konstantin Bobkov, Anastasia Veselkina, Polina Ezhova, Olga Karaseva, Sofya Petrova, Oleg Sapozhnikov, Alexandra Shnyreva, Mark Eidelstein

Technical Director: Alexander Chubenko
Assistant Director: Polina Miroshnichenko
Assistant Producers: Sofya Gromova
Assistant Costume Designer: Ksenia Fassimo

Tickets are available for purchase on the museum’s website.