Fathers and sons: adapted from the novel by Ivan Turgenev

Fathers and Sons is a modern play adaptation of the 1862 novel by Ivan Turgenev. In this adaptation, set in middle America in the 2010s, the young nihilist Eugene Bazarov is a medical student who gains the following of recent college graduate Arkady Kirsanov through his increasingly popular YouTube channel. While visiting Arkady’s family, Bazarov creates a stir through his insistence that meaning is an illusion and even the most highly celebrated values – love, sacrifice, compassion – can be finally explained by science. Bazarov creates a rift in the Kirsanov family which leads the young men to depart in pursuit of a new video project. Meanwhile, Bazarov comes to question his own beliefs when he encounters mysterious socialite Anna Odinstov. When Bazarov himself falls in love, his sense of the world begins to crumble. As he navigates the new and frightening experience of being in love, he seeks to maintain his former worldview at any cost.