After successful and award-winning stagings in London and New York, Sir Tom Stoppard’s epically sprawling nine-hour triology “The Coast of Utopia” has finally opened in Moscow, where the writer was surprised by the reactions of Russian audiences to these extended portrayals of intellectual titans like Bakunin, Turgenev, and Belinsky (even the accompanying reading list for the play caused Isaiah Berlin’s 1978 book of essays “Russian Thinkers” to sell out). Journalist Arkady Ostrovsky, who translated Stoppard’s play for adaptation, has an insightful piece examining how these philosophical debates of pre-revolutionary Russia still have major resonance in today’s society:

Afterwards, the spectators argue not about the merits of the production, but about what has been said on stage. This surprises Stoppard: “It is as if people are responding to statements. They seem to imply that my plays fill some sort of gap-I don’t quite believe it.” He should. From the moment Stoppard responded to the letter which led to my translating the plays into Russian, he talked about his fantasy of seeing them performed in Russia—”as a test for the play and a homage to the culture which inspired it”. He wanted to know how his Russian characters, many of whom died in exile, would be received at home. In fact, bringing the plays to Russia turned out to be as much of a test for the country as it was for the plays.