The play is the winner of the Star of Theater award in the category Best play. Small Form (2022).

The author of the music to the songs is Nikolai Orlovsky.
The music of The Cinematic Orchestra sounds in the performance.
The scenery was made by Art-Dec LLC, costumes were made by Nika and Partners LLC.
We would like to thank Svetlana Smirnova, People's Artist of Russia, for her participation in the filming as the Countess.

Published in the early twentieth century, Sologub's novel The Petty Devil, sold out unprecedented in those days and for such prose circulation of ten thousand copies. The story of insanity gymnasium teacher of fine arts Ardalon Borisovich Peredonov became a diagnosis of the time, and its symbol. The Petty Devil completes the classic Russian prose, and its protagonist Peredonov - sinister and in some places grotesquely caricatured mixture of a dozen heroes of great Russian literature from Akaki Akakievich and Pechorin to Svidrigailov and "man in a case" Belikov. The popularity of the novel was such that the concept of "peredonovshchina" came into use.

The play "Creature" was written by theater critic and playwright Valery Semenovsky in 1999, on the eve of the new millennium, almost a hundred years after the novel was written.

Peredonov, on occasion and without "falling" to the great Russian literature, quoting Derzhavin, Pushkin, Dostoevsky for every outrage - as an image of our largely manipulative attitude to the Russian classics, which sometimes cover disreputable deeds and intentions.

Valery Semenovsky wrote in the preface to his play: "Madness covers everyone. Because the "peredonovskoe" rule - to blame others for one's sins, to repent for nothing, to take responsibility for nothing - is the norm of common life here, its organism. Here you can sing Pushkin and spit into eternity. In one breath".

Director Nikita Kobelev: "In my opinion, in this play there is a clash between the classical literary canon, which is very important for the Russian mentality and the way it works today, and the cynicism and immorality of the play's characters, who justify their actions with this very canon. I'm interested in how much the classics really protect and save us today, or whether they have become just a tool for various kinds of manipulation".

For Nikita Kobelev Creature - the first work at the Alexandrinsky Theater. In 2011, Kobelev graduated from the directing faculty of GITIS (workshop of O. L. Kudryashov). From 2012 to 2019 he worked as a full-time stage director at the Mayakovsky Theater. From 2012 to 2019 he worked as a full-time stage director at the Mayakovsky Theater. From 2017 to 2021 he was a teacher at the Mindaugas Karbauskis Workshop at the acting faculty of RATI-GITIS. His creative biography includes productions based on classical and modern Russian literature (An Ordinary Story based on the novel by I. Goncharov, St. Mark's Campanile based on the novel by M. Shishkin) and drama - based on plays by Brecht, Gorenstein, Petrushevskaya and Bogoslavsky. Only in the Mayakovsky Theater. The director has staged more than ten productions at the Mayakovsky Theater alone. He has staged in theaters in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Latvia and Estonia.

Premiere - January 15, 2022

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