Fausto Russo Alesi stages Turgenev's 'Fathers and Sons' as an anti-war act

Actor and director Fausto Russo Alesi has adapted Ivan Turgenev's 1862 novel 'Fathers and Sons' for the stage, with a production that debuted in Modena and Bologna before moving to Naples and Pordenone. The project, conceived in 2016 with scholar Fausto Malcovati, is a collaboration between Centro Teatrale Santacristina and ERT. Malcovati, who appears on stage as the Author, opens the show with a statement against war, declaring 'Dialogue, not tanks, not bombs, not walls.' The polyphonic staging features thirteen young performers holding scripts aloft to affirm literature's power against propaganda. The novel's conflict between conservative parents and nihilist children is presented as a paradigm for the search for truth, avoiding ideological simplification. Turgenev, who lived under Tsar Alexander II, is noted for banning Ukrainian in liturgy and teaching in 1864. The production aims to counter Russophobic simplifications, with Malcovati stating in La Lettura that 'no culture has had as much courage as Russian culture to oppose tyrants, diktats, and gags.'