Conversations in Tusculum

A revised version of Richard Nelson's 2008 play, CONVERSATIONS IN TUSCULUM. It was made for a production, directed by the author, at the Theater on Podil, Kyiv, Ukraine. It opened in May, 2024.

"The playwright has a wonderful sense of presence, as if he wasn't constructing the play, but was in that villa and recording dialogues and fragments of phrases... This play touches a rare string of the soul."

Ukrainian Theatre Magazine

"This conversation isn't really about Caesar. Rather, it's about power, the escalation of conflict... and ways to stop the war from ordinary people who are in an emotionally unstable state. This is why the performance resonates so much with the modern Ukrainian audience."

OBOZ.UA

"Theatrical magic... Richard Nelson has brought this from another part of the world."

Mirror of the Week, Ukraine.

A review of the 2008 version:

"Set in country villas outside of Rome in the months before Caesar's assassination, Conversations in Tusculum imagines the frustrations of fiery senators and warriors reduced to brooding in self-imposed isolation about the endangered civil freedoms of their republic... A portrait of the guilt of being merely intellectual when the world demands something more."

Ben Brantley, The New York Times