Award Winning Play about Magnitsky’s Murder to Open in London Theatre on Anniversary of His Death

October 31, 2012

“ONE HOUR EIGHTEEN MINUTES”

UK the­atre debut of an award-win­ning play about the mur­der of Sergei Magnitsky 

in Russ­ian Cus­tody to start on 13^th Novem­ber 2012

(OPENING NIGHT 16 Novem­ber 2012)

30 Octo­ber 2012 — The British the­atre debut of “One Hour Eigh­teen Min­utes”, an award-win­ning play that merges the­atre, pol­i­tics and human rights cam­paign­ing into a pow­er­ful account of a one-man’s tragedy at the hands of a repres­sive state, will open at the New Dio­ra­ma The­atre in Lon­don on 13^th Novem­ber 2012.  The play depicts the final hours of Sergei Mag­nit­sky, a whis­tle-blow­ing Russ­ian lawyer who uncov­ered mas­sive cor­rup­tion in the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment, tes­ti­fied about it and was killed in custody.

The open­ing night will be on Fri­day 16 Novem­ber 2012, the third anniver­sary of Sergei Magnitsky’s death and will fea­ture a per­for­mance fol­lowed by a post-show dis­cus­sion with William Brow­der, CEO of Her­mitage Cap­i­tal, who is run­ning a world­wide cam­paign for jus­tice for Sergei Magnitsky.

Date:    16 Novem­ber 2012

Venue: New Dio­ra­ma The­atre, 15 — 16 Tri­ton Street, Regents Place, Lon­don, NW1 3BF

Time:   7.30 pm

Sergei Mag­nit­sky was a young Russ­ian lawyer who uncov­ered and exposed the largest tax theft in Russ­ian his­to­ry car­ried out by Russ­ian gov­ern­ment offi­cials and crim­i­nals. After tes­ti­fy­ing against the offi­cials involved, some of the very same peo­ple had him arrest­ed and impris­oned. He was tor­tured in cus­tody in an attempt to make him retract his tes­ti­mo­ny and when his health dete­ri­o­rat­ed, he was denied med­ical care. Fol­low­ing a beat­ing by riot guards with rub­ber batons, he died in a Moscow prison cell on 16^th Novem­ber 2009, aged 37, leav­ing a wife and two children.

“One Hour Eigh­teen Min­utes” weaves togeth­er a dra­mat­ic tale which gives unprece­dent­ed insight into the dark heart of mod­ern-day Rus­sia. The script is based on the hand-writ­ten diaries kept by Sergei Mag­nit­sky dur­ing his 358 days of incar­cer­a­tion doc­u­ment­ing his ill-treat­ment. The title of the play refers to the time that prison guards pre­vent­ed two civil­ian medics from enter­ing his cell to reg­is­ter his death. Since Sergei Magnitsky’s death, not one of the offi­cials involved in his per­se­cu­tion has been pros­e­cut­ed.  Instead, the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment pro­mot­ed the offi­cers in charge of his case and gave them top state honors.

Sergei Magnitsky’s case and the impuni­ty of the offi­cers has led to a dra­mat­ic move­ment in Russ­ian soci­ety call­ing on the West to intro­duce sanc­tions on Russ­ian offi­cials respon­si­ble for his death and the cor­rup­tion he had uncov­ered, in the form of visa bans and freezes on their assets in West­ern banks. As a result, the U.S. State Depart­ment has already imposed visa bans. The Euro­pean Par­lia­ment and the Par­lia­men­tary Assem­bly of the OSCE have passed res­o­lu­tions this year call­ing on West­ern gov­ern­ments to enact the Mag­nit­sky sanc­tions. The US Mag­nit­sky Act is cur­rent­ly going through the US Con­gress. The Russ­ian gov­ern­ment is vehe­ment­ly oppos­ing the Mag­nit­sky sanc­tions, and Pres­i­dent Putin has made resist­ing them one of his top for­eign pol­i­cy priority.

The play was orig­i­nal­ly writ­ten by Russ­ian play­wright Ele­na Grem­i­na, who is con­sid­ered by many to be the most impor­tant polit­i­cal play­wrights in Rus­sia today. Grem­i­na also co-found­ed Teatr.doc in Moscow, which has been instru­men­tal in fos­ter­ing polit­i­cal play­writ­ing in Rus­sia. She has been pub­lished in Moscow the­atre jour­nals and is the lau­re­ate of the Stalk­er Prize in 2005 for her work in con­tem­po­rary the­ater, and the win­ner of the All-Russ­ian Com­pe­ti­tion of Plays in Moscow. She was com­mis­sioned by Tri­cy­cle The­atre to co-write one of the plays in The Bomb, and has been com­mis­sioned by The Roy­al Court.

Noah Birk­st­ed-Breen, the direc­tor of the pro­duc­tion, won the Chan­nel 4 The­atre Director’s Award in 2006. His the­atre com­pa­ny, Sput­nik, is the only British the­atre com­pa­ny ded­i­cat­ed to stag­ing new Russ­ian drama.

The play will run for two weeks from 13 Novem­ber — 1 Decem­ber 2012. Per­for­mances start at: 7.30 pm

Per­formed in Eng­lish: Tues — Sat @ 19:30 Sat­ur­day Mati­nee @ 15:00 Tick­et Prices: 12.50 / 10.50 (Con­ces­sions)

Venue: New Dio­ra­ma The­atre 15 – 16 Tri­ton Street, Regents Place, Lon­don NW1 3BF

For PRESS ENQUIRIES or pho­tos please con­tact Mar­gari­ta Osepyan on:

Email: margarita@sputniktheatre.co.uk

Phone: 07805668060

Review of the Moscow Pre­mier of One Hour Eigh­teen Min­utes by Radio Free Europe:

Moscow The­ater Stages Last Days Of Detained Lawyer

http://www.rferl.org/content/Moscow_Theater_Stages_Last_Days_Of_Detained_Lawyer/2064238.html

To book tickets:

http://newdiorama.tsd-aff.com/tickets/slink.buy/e.225I/london/new-diorama-theatre/one-hour-eighteen-minutes.html

Vis­it www.newdiorama.com or call 0207 383 9034

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