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Subject to Fits: A Response to Dostoevski's 'The Idiot'

Full-Length Play, Drama  /  3w, 6m

"Absolutely thrilling – a soul trip, an adventure of the heart and mind. A joy to encounter, a play to cherish." - The New York Times

"Wonderfully comic, fascinating and full of intelligence. The songs
erupt from characters who look like they’ll perish if they contain their
feelings one second longer." - The Village Voice

Subject to Fits: A Response to Dostoevski's 'The Idiot'

  • Cast Size
    Cast Size
    3w, 6m
  • Duration
    Duration
    105 Minutes
  • SubGenre
    Subgenre
    Adaptations (Literature), Experimental
  • Audience
    Target Audience
    Appropriate for all audiences, Adult, Senior, Teen (Age 14 - 18)

Details

Summary

Robert Montgomery calls his Subject To Fits not an adaptation but "a response to Dostoyevsky's The Idiot, smacking of The Idiot, dreaming of The Idiot, but mostly taking off from where The Idiot drove it."

Prince Myshkin, a pure soul just released from an epilepsy clinic, is thrown into the mad whirl of St. Petersburg society. His child-like honesty steals the hearts of two competing women: the aristocratic Aglaya, and the decadent Natasha; and wins the dark friendships of the men: a murderer, a consumptive, an alcoholic, a hopeless mediocrity and a toady. But his innocence flails against their fitful intensity. He suffers two seizures of ecstatic vision followed by nightmare lows. After the first, he realizes, "An enormous upsurge of happiness has completely dispirited me." After the second, try as he might, he can't take in any more and retreats to catatonia.

The whole play, it turns out, is his catatonic consciousness trying to fit these events together through music and shards of memory.

This is a music theater work with much dark comedy. The music is basic, in a Brecht-Weill musical style, written for actors who can carry a tune.  

History

Premiered at the Pubic Theater (New York Shakespeare Festival) 1971.

MYSHKIN - a child-like epileptic.
ROGOZHIN - a wealthy dissipate.
LEBEDEV - a money-grubbing toady.
NATASHA - a wild high-society woman.
MME. YEPANCHIN - maternal; good-hearted.
AGLAYA YEPANCHIN - her daughter, pretty and volatile.
GANYA IVOGLIN - a mediocre social climber.
IPPOLIT IVOGLIN - an extremely sensitive consumptive.
GENERAL IVOGLIN - a very alcoholic storyteller.

Basic "Singing for actors" involved.

  • Time Period Not Applicable, 19th Century
  • Features Contemporary Costumes / Street Clothes, Elaborate / High Volume Costumes, Period Costumes
  • Additional Features Play w/ Music, Special Effects
  • Duration 105 Minutes
  • Cautions
    • Alcohol
    • Mild Adult Themes
    • No Special Cautions

Media

"Absolutely thrilling – a soul trip, an adventure of the heart and mind. A joy to encounter, a play to cherish." - The New York Times

"Wonderfully comic, fascinating and full of intelligence. The songs erupt from characters who look like they’ll perish if they contain their feelings one second longer." - The Village Voice

"Astonishing dialogue, remarkable music, beautifully logical. It moves on the tide of that rarest of energies – inspiration. Young American theater at its best. " - Time Magazine

Music

  • Musical Style N/A (Not a musical)
  • Vocal DemandsEasy
  • Chorus Size No Chorus

Licensing & Materials

  • Minimum Fee: $110 per performance
  • Mandatory Music/Media Fee: $15 per performance

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Authors

Robert Montgomery

Robert Montgomery is a writer and composer whose work has been produced in New York City (Public Theater, La MaMa, Soho Rep, among others), and in theaters across America (including the Alley Theater and the premier Spoleto Festival in South Carolina) and abroad (including th ...
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