Video version made by Peter Shepotinnik, Russia 2000, 158 min
Producer: Theatrical Company 814
Cast: Oleg Menshikov, Ekaterina Vasilieva, Olga Kuzina, Marat Basharov
Distributor: WestVideo

Don't believe yourself when you feel bored watching this video. This is a great comedy and Oleg Menshikov is the best actor of our culture world. Now he is on the top of his success as a producer - in the most prestigious performance of last two seasons. If you have not seen this show on tour in your distant town or at the Mossovet Theatre in Moscow - now it's easy to find out what you missed FOREVER!
In 2000, this performance was taken off the theatre stage but a video version was recorded (fortunately for those who missed this historic event - V.V.). According to the data of the World Bank cultural department, a modern video consumer considers video and TV versions of theatre performances a cheap spectacle product. We can't argue with these savages: they are right. A human crystalline lens refracts an irremovable long shot focusing on one or another place of acting - in the theatre we can see the full acting. The video version of this performance is a macroscreen with a long shot of the scene where an islet of sharpness roams only God knows how - but not a film. It requires a science-fiction technology, which doesn't exist. In a theatre version of Peter Shepotinnik's video of the play a spectator would be tired of jumping round the auditorium, stage and wings - as the camera does. It would require a special technology too: hoisting mechanism for the chairs that would move them to the fly-loft or up to the actors - as quickly as the blowing of the wind. It's already possible to build such chairs; the most important thing is not to have them collided with each other.
"Woe From Wit" was thundering. The tickets to the play were the most expensive in Moscow. All the dates were sold out. It was the first project of Oleg Menshikov's Theatrical Company. The press was crazy then; and even now, it's hard to say if they wrote positive or negative opinions on it. Much has been changed since then: today the production of "Woe From Wit" by Sergey Zhenovach is on stage at the Maly Theatre and a new super project "Kitchen" by Maxim Kurochkin is staged by TT814.
"Don't part with those you love": the single line of a Soviet poem can illustrate the whole story about Alexander Chatsky and Sofia Famusova - friends of childhood, who didn't find their happiness when they met after a long-time separation. "A million of sufferings" and a hundred of proverbs, "Eugeny Onegin" and "Stranger" by Blok united together. The impetuous performance filled with emotions is played by Menshikov's Company with countless minutes of silence, painful like everything showing that you should not waste your life in vain.
This is an entreprise of one star, but with the participation of a comet: Menshikov/Chatsky spends the most time onscreen; but in the middle of the video Ekaterina Vasilieva (the greatest Russian actress - V.V.) appears for 10 minutes as an eccentric lady from Moscow Khlestova. There are also two wonderful actors: Poleena Agureeva (from Peter Fomenko's Studio) as Sofia's maid Lisa - one of the key roles: the first character that appears onstage; and handsome Alexey Zavialov (from the Vakhtangov Theatre) as Molchalin. Alexander Sirin and Tatiana Rudina, a married couple in life, are apart here that's why their characters are so sad. Sirin is melancholic Platon Gorich. Rudina is Ryumina, Jr. - a lonely granddaughter of yet another Moscow old lady from "Woe From Wit". The hero of the recent premiere "The Wedding Day" Marat Basharov (as Zagoretsky - a young man without brakes) is the most negative character of the varied performance.
We can't say for sure if we have ever seen such beautiful scenery! Every time the camera shows a general view, you can't take your eyes away from the mystery: this is probably a painted domic ceiling of the classicism put sideways by the romanticism of Griboedov's days. The acquaintance with this geometry trains your consciousness.
One more value compatible with the video is the soundtrack of "Woe From Wit". It is a masterpiece of Valery Gavrilin who died a year ago. He was a great musical expert and this music is really impressive!

Recommended: if you have already read "Woe From Wit".
Not recommended: if you have no time.