Calvert 22 Space to host live performance of Dostoevsky’s Demons

Tomorrow on 31 October, Calvert 22 Space will be the stage for a live performance of an excerpt of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel Demons, which satires the world of Russian revolutionaries in the 19th century.

The basis of the show by SplitMoon Theatre company is a chapter from Demons that Dostoevsky developed out of anarchist Sergei Nechaev’s Catechism of a Revolutionary, a notorious 1869 revolutionary manifesto.

A passionate nihilist and advocate of terrorism, Nechaev famously helped murder a former accomplice — an incident that was used by Dostoevsky as the inspiration for Demons.

The dramatisation is written and directed by Peter Stürm and will be performed by SplitMoon Theatre actors Samuel Collings and Timothy Allsop. It will be followed by a discussion.

Catechism of a Revolutionary was penned by Nechaev in conjunction with anarchist Mikhail Bakunin while the two men were living in Geneva. It had a huge impact on subsequent generations of revolutionaries worldwide, including Lenin and Stalin.

SplitMoon Theatre is staging Dostoevsky’s Demons at St Leonard’s Church, Shoreditch between 25 October – 11 November to mark the centenary of the Russian Revolution.

Tomorrow’s performance at Calvert 22 Space will begin at 7:00 p.m. and more details and tickets can be found here.