My Poor Marat

My Poor Marat by Alexei Arbuzov in a new translation by Oleg Ivanov

[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/58898690 w=500&h=281]

Presented by Voyage Theater Company, Wayne Maugans, Director

April 5 – 27, 2013
Tuesday-Saturday 7:30 PM / Saturday-Sun 2:30 PM
Select performances in Russian

Canal Park Playhouse
508 Canal Street (Between Greenwich & Washington)
New York, NY 10013

Tickets: $25

An estimated 300,000 people lost their lives in Leningrad during the winter of 1942. Held under siege by the German army, the city was without heat, food, and water while temperatures plummeted in one of the most brutal winters Russia had ever seen.  In 2012 –70 years after that fateful winter– Voyage Theater Company will pay tribute to the survivors of the Siege of Leningrad in a bilingual production of My Poor Marat by esteemed Russian playwright Alexei Arbuzov.

My Poor Marat  begins its action in Leningrad during the time of the siege. It is a love story between three young people who are robbed of their youth by the horror of mass death and destruction. Surviving the war, they return to the city where they met, only to be confronted with the harsh reality of life under the Stalinist regime. Written in 1963, My Poor Marat was performed widely throughout the Soviet Union. The play was translated into English in 1965 by British translator Ariadne Nicolaeff, and produced under a new title: The Promise.  The Promise opened at the Oxford Playhouse in 1967, starring Judi Dench, Ian McShane, and Ian McKellen, and transferred to Broadway in 1968 where it closed after only two weeks. Since then, there has been no major New York City production.

Voyage Theater Company will present the play under its original title My Poor Marat. Featuring a bi-lingual cast, the play will perform in both Russian and English on alternating performances. VTC has also commissioned a new English-language translation by Oleg Ivanov which was completed in 2012.