A production by the Moscow Art Theatre of the USSR named after M. Gorky, staged by Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko based on a short story by Fyodor Dostoevsky, transports the viewer to the provincial town of Mordasov.
At the center of the plot is Marya Alexandrovna Mоskalёva, a self-confident and commanding “first lady” of the town. Learning that an elderly, naive Prince K. is visiting, she decides to take advantage of his feeblemindedness in order to arrange a profitable marriage between him and her daughter.
Roles and performers
Prince K. — Nikolay Svobodin;
Marya Alexandrovna Mоskalёva — Vera Popova;
Afanasiy Matveyevich Mоskalёv, her husband — Nikolay Antonov;
Zinaida Afanasyevna Mоskalёva, their daughter — Angelina Stepanova;
Pavel Alexandrovich Mozglyakov — Yuriy Nedzvetskiy;
Nastasya Petrovna — Elena Elina;
Sofya Petrovna Karpukhina — Mariya Knebel;
Natalya Dmitriyevna — Yelizaveta Skulskaya;
Praskovya Ilyinichna — Sofya Pilyavskaya;
Luiza Karpovna — Natalya BogoYavlenskaya;
Ekaterina Petrovna — Valeriya Dementyeva;
Felisyata — Olga Labzina;
Anna Nikolaevna — Galina Shostko;
Grishka — Pavel Lyudvigov.
Production — Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko.
Stage adaptation — Vasiliy Luzhskoy.
Directors (theatre) — Vasiliy Sakhnovskiy, Kseniya Kotlubay.