‘Demagogue’ by Hugo Erikssen (fresh graduate of Shchukin Theatre Institute and an apprentice of Rimas Tuminas) is a part of Alexandrinsky Theatre’s ‘Young directors premiere at the New Stage’ programme.

A play of the same name by Kirill Fokin was an origin for the staging. Use by contemporary author of Ancient heroic plot, emphasizing similarities with modern times is a long-known literary method, which helps to underline how worries of bygone heroes are close and common to us. Such an approach is perfectly fitting and justified in ‘Demagogue’: Hero’s rise and fall; fight for power and dominance, based on true historical events of Peloponnesian War; making the choice (or just an illusion of making) between democracy and dictatorship; an answer to the question ‘What rules today’s world: money or ideology?’, while money itself became, perhaps, a basis of every ideology – all of it is no less relevant these days.

The performance premiered on September 26, 2018