Jake Robertson, a senior in Princeton’s Lewis Center for the Arts’ Program in Theater, depicted Max Bialystock in last season’s performance of The Producers. Photo by Frank Wojciechowski.
The Lewis Center for the Arts’ Program in Theater will present Madman, a dramatic reading of Nikolai Gogol’s “Diary of a Madman” as a one-man theatrical adaptation performed by actor Jake Robertson. Productions will take place in the Class of 1970 Theater at Whitman College on Jan. 8 at 8 p.m., Jan. 9 at 8 p.m. and 11 p.m., and Jan. 10 at 2. p.m. and 8 p.m.
“Diary of a Madman,” the farcical short story on which this piece is based, follows Poprishchin, a disenchanted civil servant living in Russia during the repressive era of Czar Nicholas I, and whose immense financial and personal struggles lead him to vent his frustrations in his diary. Entries shift from belittling reports of his superiors, to his obsession with his boss’s daughter, to a suspicion that dogs can talk. When Poprishchin reads that the King of Spain has died without an heir, he realizes his destiny and declares himself King Ferdinand VIII. The story follows Poprishchin’s gradual descent into madness after a string of failures in life and love.
Robertson is majoring in Slavic Languages and Literature in addition to pursuing a certificate in theater, for which this production is his senior thesis project. Having read the Gogol story in a course, he found parallels between the main character’s descent into madness and the demand on actors to completely become the characters they inhabit. As an actor, Robertson has taken on a wide range of characters in Lewis Center productions including Max Bialystock in the musical The Producers, “Him” in Marina Carr’s drama Woman and Scarecrow, Serebriakov in Chekov’s classic Uncle Vanya, and Judge Brack in Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler. Robertson’s post-graduation plans include applying for prospective fellowships to study acting in the U.K. and, generally, pursuing a career in the theater.
Both a director and a playwright, Sandberg directed recent Lewis Center productions including Uncle Vanya, A Steady Rain, A Broad Abroad, and Fires in the Mirror, as well as Princeton Summer Theater productions of Gaslight and The Heidi Chronicles. His play, Roundelay, premiered at Passage Theater in 2013. His plays have been seen in Australia, Canada, England, Japan, Panama, and South Korea, as well as at theaters throughout the U.S. He has been commissioned by, among others, George Street Playhouse, McCarter Theatre, Metro Theater Company, and Seattle Children’s Theatre. Sandberg is a Princeton alumnus and in 2014 received the University’s President’s Distinguished Teaching Award.
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