The Lonesome West

“The Lonesome West“ is the third in the program series from the Theatre of Nations designed to introduce new faces in theatre to Russian audiences. The first “discovery“ of the series was a graduate of the Russian Academy of Theatre Arts, Nikita Grinshpun, the director of “The Swedish Matchstick“ by Anton Chekhov, who staged the production with a team of like-minded young actors. Many of them are today quite well-known.

The second production was „Letters to Felice” by F. Kafka, staged by a troupe of graduates from the St. Petersburg Academy of Theatre Arts and lead by director Kirill Sbitnev. Both plays are now in the repertoire of The Theatre of Nations.

Speaking of his production, the director of The „Lonesome West”, Tufan Imamutdinov, said that „McDonagh, I have found, can be quite soft, subtle, even vulnerable. In a small Irish town we find Chekovian characters: A disillusioned, bumbling minister, who is hopelessly loved by a local girl; and two brothers, who cannot, under any circumstances, forgive each other. It is a play about pies and loneliness. About a home without a mother. About an ancient, calm lake in which all come to seek solace”.