Part I: All happy families are alike
Part II: Each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way

Oliver Frljic, the award-winning director with many productions abroad, returns to ZKM with a contemporary take on the Russian classic The Brothers Karamazov as a double play. If spectators choose to see only one performance they will get a rounded, yet partial story. Alternatively, they can come again to get a full view of the complex storylines of this novel, considered by many the most complete piece by Dostoevsky. Duality is best presented in the mirroring of certain characters and their relationships but also in stage and costume design choices and casting, as the same actors play several characters who complement each other. Even though stage adaptations made so far leave out the storyline about the relationship between brother Alyosha and boys from the lower social strata, Frljic gives it equal attention as to the main story about the brothers Karamazov and their father.

The family as opium for the people. Tolstoy’s happy and unhappy families through the prism of Dostoevsky’s harsh realism. As ordered for Oliver Frljic.