St. Petersburg Theater remade the musical based on Akunin’s Diamond Chariot

St. Petersburg Theater LDM adapted the performance based on the book “Diamond Chariot” by Boris Akunin. Now it is called Reinvention-musical “Marco Polo. White Lotus”, according to the official website of the institution.

“This performance was born from the musical “Diamond Chariot”. The production company decided to rewrite the libretto, move the scene to friendly China, and make the main character Marco Polo, a descendant of the great traveler who “discovered” Heaven for Europe. The musical was dressed in the beautiful colors of the “White Lotus “and moved to the Chinese city of Shandu,” the press release says.

The events of “Diamond Chariot”, which is part of the series about the adventures of Erast Fandorin, take place mainly in Japan. The first volume is about the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, the second volume is about Fandorin’s service as a diplomat in Japan in 1878.

Thus, Japan in the version of LDM was changed to China, and Fandorin to the descendant and full namesake of Marco Polo (the real one died in 1324 in Venice), but the latter, like the detective hero Akunin, has to investigate in 1878 Sever.Realii notes.

Boris Akunin himself has already commented on “Reinvention-musical” from LDM on his Facebook page:

“I would have grabbed this life hack in the place of the Russian Federation. Just imagine! Parade of reinventions: All of Pugacheva’s songs are reinvented by Shaman. The song “Etot trainz v ogne” is tweaked slightly: “Etot trainz v Donbass” (“and we don’t have anyone else “). “Turkish gambit” turns into “Crimean endgame”. And so on. I would even register a patent for this grandiose idea, but the rights will still be confiscated.”

• This week it became known that the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia declared the writer Borys Akunin (Grygory Chkhartyshvili) wanted. In December of last year, because of the writer’s anti-war statements, criminal cases were initiated against him for articles on “fakes” about the Russian army and the justification of terrorism.
• The Ministry of Justice of Russia included Akunin in the register of “foreign agents”, and Rosfinmonitoring – in the list of terrorists and extremists.
• Akunin has been living in London since 2014. He repeatedly criticized the policy of Russian President Vladimir Putin, condemned the annexation of Crimea and the war in Ukraine.
• After the start of the war, Akunin’s works in Russia experienced censorship pressure. His name was removed from the posters of performances based on his plays. Some theaters canceled such performances. The AST publishing house announced that it is suspending the distribution of Akunin’s books. In the chain of stores “Chitay-horod – Bookvoed” ego books were removed from sale. Another publishing house, Zakharov, which published Akunin’s works, was searched.