The Diary of a Madman. Set in St Petersburg at the time of the Czar, Gogol’s black comedy sees the clerk Poprishchin sharpening endless quills for his boss while fantasising wildly about the boss’s daughter. In the insane bureaucratic hierarchy of 19th century Russia, rung after rung stretches above and minion after minion competes below with our poor protagonist whose life is empty of everything but obsessive work and ambition. With surreal wit and darkly absurd humour (dogs, noses and Spain all loom large in Poprishchin’s slide into delusion), this loser’s Hamlet explores the gulf between who we are and who we dream we might be.
Matthew Jure is an award winning actor whose critically acclaimed roles have included the amnesiac man in arthouse film Undertow, obsessive-destructive mathematician Septimus Hodge in Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia and the title role in Macbeth. Matthew has been nominated for five awards and has won three: Best Newcomer (BIRSt, BBC-SRA Awards); Best Actor in a Short Film (Undertow, New York International Independent Film Festival), and Best Actor in a Feature Film (Starlight & Superfish, Michigan Blue Water Film Festival).
The Diary of a Madman
Starring: Matthew Jure
Written By: Nikolay Gogol
Edited By: Ross Burman
Directed By: Jason Moore
Visit Matthew’s website at www.matthewjure.net
