Xameleon Theatre Presents DIARIES OF MADMEN

Diaries of Madmen is a new production based on Nikolai Gogol's novel Diary of a Madman and Russian musician's Piotr Ilyitch Tchaikovsky's personal diaries. Famous farcical short story by one of the greatest Russian writers Nikolai Gogol, is a funny and brutal exploration of a civil servant's Poprishchin struggle to keep a grip on reality.

Madness might mean a failure to find your proper place in the world, or the compulsion to occupy a place to which you're not entitled. Diary of a Madman exposes one man's longing to find such a place for himself, a place where he is visible, where he matters, and above all, belongs. Another civil servant Pyotr Tchaikovsky, who later became one of the greatest composers, also had a complicated relationship between his inner world and reality. His lately rediscovered personal diaries reveal his daunting self-doubt, suicidal thoughts and loneliness.

Director Konstantin Kamenski combines the stories of two civil servants and explored the relationship between genius and madness, hopelessness and the desire to escape into the imaginary world.

Xameleon Theatre is a theatre company based in London. Working with London based artists originally from post-Soviet countries including Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Baltic and Central Asian countries, and performing in Russian with English surtitles, Xameleon is bringing Russian theatre tradition to London's scene. Previous works include A Dog's Heart by Bulgakov, The Little Prince by Exupery, Odessa Stories by Isaac Babel, Love in a Nutshell - adaptation of Anton Chekhov's short stories and A Doll's House by Ibsen.

Konstantin Kamenski - graduated from the Russian Academy of Theatre Arts (GITIS/RATI) as a Drama and Opera Director, a pupil of the renowned theatre maestro Roman Viktiouk. He ran his own independent fringe theatre in Moscow from 1999-2004. He has completed his MA in Advanced Theatre Practice at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in London. Since then he directed "Brodsky Station" about Joseph Brodsky's life and one-woman show "Prison Psychologist" by contemporary Russian playwright, Elena Isaeva. Both of those shows were shown at Fringe in August 2017. For Xameleon Theatre Konstantin previously directed A Dog's Heart by Bulgakov and Odessa Stories by Isaac Babel.

Venue: The Cockpit Theatre

5th - 9th February @ 7:30 pm & 10th February @2:30 pm

Recommended age: 12+ Box Office: https://xameleontheatre.com/ or 0759712