The production (first version) won the St Petersburg “Golden Spotlight” Theatre Award for the 2012/2013 season in the “Best Female Role” category (People’s Artist of Russia Era Ziganshina as the Grandmother)
The production (first version) — winner of the Russian National Theatre Award “Golden Mask” for the 2012/2013 season in the category “Best Supporting Role” (People’s Artist of Russia Era Ziganshina as the Grandmother)
The production is based on one of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s most famous works – the novel “The Gambler”.
Dostoevsky is one of those authors with whom Valery Fokin’s creative life is inextricably linked.
In 1968, his graduation production at the Shchukin Theatre School was “Someone Else’s Wife and the Husband Under the Bed”; he subsequently returned on several occasions to both “Notes from Underground” and “Bobok”, and in 2005, the Alexandrinsky Theatre staged “The Double”. For Valery Fokin, his choice to tackle one of Dostoevsky’s most striking and incisive works, “The Gambler”, is by no means coincidental. The logic of creativity, the logic of an artistic destiny, led this director to bring Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky’s work — which remains as relevant as ever to our times — to life on the Alexandrinsky stage. The premiere of the first version of the production “Zero Liturgy” took place on 10 November 2012.
The theme of the game, the theme of roulette — which enslaves a person, forcing them to betray all that is best within themselves — became central to the entire production. ZERO Liturgy, a fervent worship of zero, of emptiness, of fiction, inevitably leads to the disintegration of the individual: Dostoevsky wrote about this in “The Gambler” — one of his most autobiographical works — and Valery Fokin reflects on the same theme in his production.
”Zero Liturgy” immediately took on a powerful symphonic sound and became a metaphor for the spirit of the times. The second version retains the overall structure of the production, whilst at the same time, with a refreshed cast, it takes on a new, contemporary feel. In harmony with the present day, the meanings are sharpened, and new forms enhance the roles. In the new cast, the role of the Grandmother is played by People’s Artist of Russia Marina Ignatova (an actress at the G.A. Tovstonogov Bolshoi Drama Theatre), the role of the General by actor Ivan Trus, the role of Mr Astley by actor Mikhail Slivnikov, and the role of Polina by actress Maria Medvedeva. Alongside the performers in the leading roles, a group of young actors has joined the production.
Premiere – 10 November 2012
Premiere of the second version – 12 September 2026
Media about the
“While for the author of the Gambler, it is a story of madness and death, one of the first chapters of Dostoyevsky’s whirlwind of anthropology; for Valery Fokin it is, first of all, a great metaphor for the Zeitgeist, an image of mindless serving the void which absorbs and disintegrates souls”.
Marina Tokareva. Time places its bet on the ZERO and sings the anthem of vanity.
Novaya Gazeta, February 2013
“This performance righteously lacks the charm of resort romance or the rapture of gambling. It’s not a routine sketch about the degradation of personality caused by gambling. The Zero Liturgy is an all-covering story of imminent soul death caused by succumbing to the temptation to place a bet on the void and to serving immediate and spontaneous values which by no means can be called eternal”.
Elena Gerusova. Alexandrinsky roulette
Kommersant, November 2012
“Putting the details of Alexei Ivanovich’s life aside, Fokin brings to the fore a decisive, clever, and wealthy character. She is feared and toadied to. The Grandmother starts with something every decent person aims at: she wants to knock down the Zero system”.
Evgeny Sokolinsky. Bets are off!
Strastnoy Bulvar, 2012
“Valery Fokin has directed a smart, intense, and beautiful performance about “the features of passion”: sacrificed love, ruined life, disappearing energy, the irresistible temptation of the roulette, and people willingly placing their bets on the Zero”.
Olga Egoshina. On the features of passion
Novye Izvestia, February 2012
“This performance is perfect by its form. I dare add that each character on the stage is so clear-cut and vivid, that it would be too difficult to rehearse the performance to a higher degree of solution immaculacy and acting quality”
Irina Korneeva. Naked nature
Rossiyskaya Gazeta, November 2012
