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After a successful run in New York in 2006-2007, British playwright Tom Stoppard's three-part dramatization of nineteenth-century Russian intellectuals opened in Moscow in October 2007.��The Coast of Utopia: Voyage, Shipwreck, Salvage has, in a sense, returned home, and this event will compare the two stagings of the play--Utopia in New York versus Utopia in Moscow.�� The event's big picture is the status of utopia two decades after the Soviet collapse. From one perspective, Stoppard's play can be seen as a statement of post-socialist disillusion.�� Here we see the thinkers who arguably helped to inspire 1917: Mikhail Bakunin, Vissarion Belinsky, and Alexander Herzen. Over the course of the play, we see these thinkers become more cynical, and in Part Two (Shipwreck), a failed revolution, marital infidelity, and the death of Herzen's son derails past hopes.�� By Part Three (Salvage), Herzen finds salvation in family and distances himself from the next generation of radical thinkers--in effect, washing his hands of the Bolshevik Revolution.

Turning to the translated Moscow production, the question is whether Russian audiences and producers have been defensive of these thinkers whom, during the Soviet era, they compulsorily revered.�� How have Russians themselves--those familiar with both these thinkers and "really existing socialism"--responded? Have there been any reworkings of the script, or interpretations that Stoppard might not have anticipated?�� By emphasizing the slippages and disjunctures between the two productions, this event seeks nothing less than a renewed vision of utopia--exceeding the limits of any one staging of Stoppard's play; or, for that matter, any one experiment with socialism.�� Put differently, the goal here is to strike the two productions against each other, and thereby redraw the coast of "no place."

For more information contact Courtney Weaver (cbweaver [at] stanford.edu (cbweaver[at]stanford[dot]edu))

Conference Schedule:

“Utopia’s Coasts: Stoppard in New York and Moscow”
Thursday-Friday, May 22-23, 2008, èצӰ��

Organizer: Steven Lee, Modern Thought and Literature, èצӰ�� Humanities Center
Faculty Sponsor: Gregory Freidin, Slavic Languages and Literature
Administration: Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies (Robert Wessling, Associate Director)

Reading, Presentation, and Discussion
Levinthal Hall, èצӰ�� Humanities Center, May 22, 2008, 7-9 pm

A staged reading of the opening scene of The Coast of Utopia, followed by a comparison of video footage from the New York and Moscow productions

Discussants:

-Alexei Borodin (Director, The Coast of Utopia, Moscow)
-Jack O’Brien (Director, The Coast of Utopia, New York)
-Carey Perloff (Artistic Director, American Conservatory Theater, San Francisco)

Symposium
Levinthal Hall, èצӰ�� Humanities Center, May 23, 2008

Breakfast, 9-9:30 am

Welcome: The Play and Project
9:30-10:00 am
Opening Remarks: Shelley Fisher Fishkin (American Studies and English, èצӰ��)
Project Overview: Steven Lee (Modern Thought and Literature, èצӰ��)

Session 1: Texts and Contexts
10:00-noon
-Irina Paperno (Slavic Literature and History, Berkeley)
-Anna Muza (Slavic Literature, Berkeley)
-Peggy Phelan (Drama, èצӰ��)
-Courtney Weaver (Slavic Literature, èצӰ��)

Lunch (provided for participants), noon-1 pm

Session 2: Staging and Direction
1-3:30 pm
-Robert Orchard (Executive Director, American Repertory Theatre, Boston)
-Alexei Borodin (Director, The Coast of Utopia, Moscow)
-Jack O’Brien (Director, The Coast of Utopia, New York)
-Dustin Condren (Slavic Literature, èצӰ��)

Discussant: Branislav Jakovljevic (Drama, èצӰ��)

Coffee, 3:30-4 pm

Session 3: Utopia and Post-Utopia—“Salvage” versus “Cast Ashore” (Vybroshennye na bereg)
4-6 pm

-Nina Bagdasarova (Philosophy and Sociology, Kyrgyz-Russian Slavic University; Fulbright Fellow, Berkeley)
-Thomas Campbell (Slavic Literature, Yale)
-Keith Gessen (Editor-in-Chief, n+1)
-Jessie Labov (Comparative Literature, èצӰ��)

Closing Remarks: Gregory Freidin (Slavic Literature, èצӰ��)