“Dostoevsky”: The biographical fantasy of Don Nigro

Abstract

In his work, the modern American playwright Don Nigro frequently refers to the personalities of world spiritual culture – philosophers, artists, musicians and writers. Russian cultural personalities occupy a significant place among them, great Russian writers in particular, to some of these personalities individual plays are dedicated, while others appear in them as minor characters. Such is the play “Dostoyevsky” (2015), in which the writer’s work is inextricably linked with his biography. In this essay, we set out to analyze this synthesis of the factional and the fictional. Biographical facts and real personalities are intertwined with the characters of Dostoevsky’s works in the same artistic space in such a way that it is sometimes difficult to separate what is happening in reality from what is a figment of the artist’s imagination. As a result, a bizarre canvas is created where the biographical facts become a kind of palimpsest, on which his creativity is super-imposed. In his plays, Nigro, as a rule, is more interested in the details of his characters’ personal life than in their creative work but this play differs favorably from some others. At the same time, despite the use of a number of postmodern strategies - fragmentation, palimpsest, abundant intertextuality, carnivality, images of mirrors and labyrinths as key symbols – the playwright goes beyond the purely postmodern game and creates a psychologically convincing image of a genius writer. The playwright himself has repeatedly confessed his great love for Russian literature, and this play is another confirmation of this.