The Face of One’s Neighbor | BTF 2026

“To love all of humanity is easy; what is difficult is to love the ugly face of one’s neighbor.” – Fyodor Dostoevsky

What does it truly mean to love another person? Not humanity as an idea, but the person standing before you—with their weakness, downfall, contradictions, and darkness.

The Face of One’s Neighbor returns to one of Dostoevsky’s great questions: why do beautiful ideas so often fail when put into human action, and is it possible for love of another to become a real force against evil?

At its center is Prince Myshkin—a man who does not try to save his fellow human being through advice or instruction, but by taking on a share of their suffering. Yet his effort encounters a painful boundary: for him, there is a “You,” while for the other there is often only an “I.”

Seven years after the life of the first theatrical adaptation of The Idiot by Theatre Laboratory Sfumato, The Face of One’s Neighbor arrives as its continuation—a more focused and ascetic performance that examines the bitter truths about humanity and, through Dostoevsky’s characters, ourselves.

A theatre that consciously rejects noise and the self-serving play of forms in order to turn toward the essential: life as a spiritual trial, and the human capacity to see light even in the darkened face of another.

“The Face of One’s Neighbor”

Based on Fyodor Dostoevsky

Stage adaptation and direction: Margarita Mladenova

Set design based on an idea by: Boris Dalchev and Mihaela Dobreva

Music: Asen Avramov

Cast: Albena Georgieva, Aleksandar Tonev, Deyan Zhekov, Martin Prodanov, Paola Maravilla, Pavlina Ilova