A stage adaptation of the 1905 Russian novel “The Petty Demon” by Fyodor Sologub is gripping audiences in Moscow's Vakhtangov theatre. It tells the story of a teacher from a small town, who dreams of a better job. He is ready to do anything to

The shocking plot includes arson and murder. An emotional shock – that is how director Anton Yakovlev describes his production.

“It's a tragic farce. It's about everyone, about all of us. How inhuman a human can be, if he doesn't ask himself – why?” Anton Yakovlev commented.

With its mixture of eroticism and perversity, Sologub's best-known novel “The Petty Demon” has been shocking readers for more than a hundred years. Now it is the turn of theatre lovers.

It has had its premiere at Moscow's Vakhtangov theatre.

“This performance is somewhere between the style of Gogol's ”Diary of a madman“ and the psychological prose of Chekhov and Dostoevsky. I'm trying to catch the necessary feeling in it,” said actor Vladimir Simonov.

The actors say, the production is an emotional experience for them.

“It all exists in real life, and it's something we must look at. And the main difficulty for us was to tackle a theme of such relevance and importance,” Olga Tumaikina, actress, noted.

In his introduction to the novel the author wrote to “his dear contemporaries,” and said that his book is about them. But the creators of the performance say the statement is still relevant in modern society.