Page to stage in a whole new way!

[Neworld]

In January 2012, Neworld Theatre will present the world premiere of Dostoyevsky's The Idiot - adapted for the stage from the novel by James Fagin Tait.

Dostoyevsky's impressive volume is actually in 3 parts. Tait's adaptation is based on "Book 1". That's the one that we'll discuss here.

Before we invite you to come see it, we invite you to read and discuss it! Did you enjoy the book? What ideas or themes were particularly interesting to you? Have you read any other Dostoyevsky? What do you think this would look like on stage?

This is a great opportunity to start an early relationship with the story and join a "book club" that looks forward to an exciting event: The Idiot on stage!

Buy the book or download it for free at:
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2638

Happy reading! And happy chatting!

[Neworld]

Starting from the beginning.

2 things particularly struck us about the book:

1) how colloquial it is. We thought that the language would be much more .....well, "classical" (for lack of a better term) but it's actually much more accessible and populist. Good thing!

2) the long Russian names. Everyone uses several names when they speak to each other and when they are referred to. We have to speak them out phonetically and work hard to remember who is who (we admit to jotting down a "cast list" as we go to keep track).

So far, so good!