The Play

The Coast of Utopia was first performed at the National Theatre in London in the summer of 2002, in a production directed by Trevor Nunn
The Coast of Utopia is a trilogy. It includes three sequential but self-contained plays describing the rise of revolutionary Russia.. The action takes place between 1853 and 1865 in London and Switzerland. It follows a group of friends who come of age under the Tsarist autocracy of Nicholas I.

The two central figures are the anarchist Michael Bakunin (in the first play) and Alexander Herzen, a nobleman’s son and the first self-proclaimed socialist in Russian history, who becomes the main focus.
Director: Trevor Nunn
Set, Costume & Video Designer: William Dudley
Lighting Director: David Hersey
Associate Director: Stephen Rayne
Music: Steven Edis
Choreography: David Bolger
Sound Designer: Paul Groothuis
Cast:
Korf : Thomas Arnold
Malwida von Meysenbug : Eve Best
Stanislaw Worcell : John Carlisle
Lajos Kossuth/Perotkin : Martin Chamberlain
Nicholas Chernyshevsky : Raymond Coulthard
Nicholas Ogarev : Simon Day
Joanna Kinkel : Felicity Dean
Alexander Herzen : Stephen Dillane
Mrs Blainey, the Herzen’s nanny : Janine Duvitski
Mary Sutherland : Charlotte Emmerson
Teresina : Rachel Ferjani
Ivan Turgenev : Guy Henry
Michael Bakunin : Douglas Henshall
Mazzini/ Czerniecki : Richard Hollis
Olga Herzen as an adult : Jasmine Hyde
Alponse de Ville : Jack James
Louis Blanc : Will Keen
Emily Jones : Jennifer Scott Malden
A Polish emigré : Sarah Manton
Tata Herzen, older and as an adult : Anna Maxwell Martin
Ernest Jones : Iain Mitchell
Arnold Ruge/ Zenkowicz : John Nolan
Karl Marx : Paul Ritter
Gottfried Kinkel/ Pavel Vetoshnikov : Nick Sampson
Sleptsov : Jonathan Slinger
Parlourmaid : Janet Spencer-Turner
Tchorzewski : Kemal Sylvester
Captain Peks/ Sasha Herzen as an adult/ Doctor : Sam Troughton
Alexandre Ledru-Rollin : David Verrey
Natalie Ogarev : Lucy Whybrow

The Book

Grove Press; Slipcase edition (July 2003). 384 pages ; 2.09 x 9.06 x 6.0 ISBN: 0802140033
Part I. Voyage -
Part II. Shipwreck
Part III. Salvage
339 pages