The Brothers Karamazov

A murder takes place within a family. Who is guilty? The person who commits it, or the person who wished for it? Or everyone whose resentment and silence made it possible? Beyond its detective plot, The Brothers Karamazov, F. M. Dostoevsky’s final novel, raises an unsettling question about our responsibility for our own choices and their consequences.

On the stage of the “Radu Stanca” National Theatre in Sibiu, Belgian director Luk Perceval returns to Dostoevsky’s masterpiece about faith and doubt, guilt and the need to be loved. This is his first production in Romania and, at the same time, a return to a novel he previously adapted for the stage in 2013 at the Thalia Theater in Hamburg.

In a family dominated by an abusive father and wounds passed down from one generation to the next, Alyosha, who stands at the centre of Luk Perceval’s theatrical world, tries to believe in the goodness that still exists in others. Rather than following his mystical calling and withdrawing from the world, he is called upon to enter its chaos, to understand his brothers and perhaps save them from themselves. His perspective turns the story into a testimony to people who have loved, made mistakes, suffered and hurt others, yet cannot be reduced to their actions alone. Alyosha’s faith becomes the starting point for a confrontation with the past and with the impossibility of drawing absolute boundaries between guilt and innocence.