PERFORMANCE REVIEW: A JOURNEY INTO THE HUMAN MIND
PERFORMANCE REVIEW: A JOURNEY INTO THE HUMAN MIND

Summary/Abstract: Generally, when adapting a novel for the stage, one must be prepared for dealing with numerous difficulties, raised by the nature of the text itself and, of course, by the specificities of the performing arts. It is a hard and challenging work, which might often seem tedious and tiresome to the regular theatre-goers. Staging Dostoevsky‘s writings is, from that point of view, even more demand¬ing and, subsequently, more rewarding to the dramatist when faced with the final product of such an enthralling activity. The psychological facets in the Rus¬sian author’s texts are so complex, that they do not leave way for anything else. Concrete ac¬tion, most of the times regarded as the salt and pepper of playwriting, be¬comes secondary. This is one of the reasons why I first doubted that The Idiot could ever be turned into a successful play without diminishing some of its most precious, analytical and insightful passages. Of course, as most of the times when one lets prejudice set the foundation of spectatorship, my judg¬ment proved wrong. Anna Stigsgaard’s vision materialized into a very interesting enact¬ment, with its inevitable ups and downs, but nonetheless unexpectedly coherent.

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