OOOO – THE DREAM OF GOGOL

This is not simply a performance based on Gogol’s texts; this is a subsequent expedition by Sfumato in an author’s world. On the horizon of our quest, we can foresee the phantasmagorical silhouette of Gogol, wrapped in his famous overcoat, timidly tiptoeing along the mighty Nevsky Prospect – a gigantic display of the Empire where St. Petersburg promenades daily. That ghost-city, that crazy project inspired by the image of the heavenly Jerusalem, is recognized by Gogol as a haunt of demons and devils. Gogol’s humans live amongst them – every single one of them is a duplicate of himself, of his fears, yearnings and disappointments.

In the carousel, eccentric movement of the “divine mechanic”, the trace of the singly human act produces the effect of a firefly in June: light on, light off. Yet the billion flashes write in the dark a sentence of providence; a sentence that is inarticulate for us. The genius of Gogol releases our intuition for paradoxes, for phantasmagorical enlightenments, truer than straight logic. Like the speculation that success is a form of death, whereas failure is a chance for resurrection. Otherwise, how can we acknowledge man as a being that is striving for happiness – and running away from it when he finally finds it?