Marvel at the social satire & class confrontations in Main Street Theater’s Enemies

Photo courtesy of Main Street Theater

Travel back to pre-revolutionary Russia as Main Street Theater in Rice Village presents Maxim Gorky’s Enemies, running now through Sunday, October 15, 2017.

To kick off its 2017-18 MainStage season, Main Street Theater is presenting David Hare’s adaptation of Gorky’s extraordinary play.

Written in exile and banned in his home country, Enemies presents a panoramic view of a restless society on the brink of revolution.

Praise for Enemies at Main Street Theater

Tellingly relevant today, the clever and incisively funny play is already entertaining Houston audiences.

Houston Press

Main Street has proven time and again that they can manage a large cast, which Enemies requires with 20 named roles (and a few more unnamed). Director Rebecca Greene Udden is a master at utilizing the limited space available and the four stage entrances… 

The production design team… also have created a set and an atmosphere that serve the actors rather than stand out on their own, so the actors, wherever they are, command all the attention. – Houston Press

The Courier of Montgomery County

…In staging the birth of divisions that has both sides creating its enemies, and as a result, it shows not only the current events of 1906 Russia but echoes the splits visible on any cable news panel of our time. Dramatizing a foreign history, it feels very America in 2017.  – The Courier of Montgomery Country

Photo courtesy of Main Street Theater

About Enemies

It’s 1905, and Russia is at a critical moment in its history. The bourgeoisie is no longer confident in its own values. The working class is slowly realizing the terrifying sacrifices they will have to make.

Gorky approached this unique, imaginative play, with great humanity and a broad dramatic scope, offering a glimpse into what the world might have been like in the time between aristocratic rule and the revolution in Russia.

Directed by Rebecca Greene Udden, the show is a collaboration with the University of Houston School of Theatre and Dance.

About Maxim Gorky

Maxim Gorky, whose real name was Aleksei Maximovich Peshkov, was born on March 16, 1868, in the Volga River city of Nizhny Novgorod (it was renamed Gorky in his honor in 1932).

Already established as a major novelist and short story writer, at the turn of the century Gorky began writing plays and formed close connections with the Moscow Art Theater, which, in 1902, produced his most famous play, The Lower Depths.

For a significant part of his life, Gorky was exiled from Russia and later, the Soviet Union. In 1932, he returned to Russia on Joseph Stalin’s personal invitation and died there in June 1936.

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Grekov (Troy Beckman) and Mikhail (Joel Sandel) | Photo courtesy of Main Street Theater

About Main Street Theater

Main Street Theater provides theater experiences for all ages. Founded in 1975, the company’s MainStage produces professional, intimate, literary plays for adults and operates under an Actors’ Equity Association union contract.

Its Theater for Youth produces professional, engaging productions based on children’s literature for families and school groups, both in-house and on tour around Texas.

The theater operates out of two venues, its home on Times Boulevard in Rice Village and at The MATCH on Main Street in Midtown.

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Kleopatra (Kara Greenberg) and Tatyana (Megan Rodgers) | Photo courtesy of Main Street Theater

Enemies at Main Street Theater

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