Stefano Massini - The Tsar

A powerful and chilling story, that of Putin, with which Stefano Massini returns to tackle the theme of power in the new production of Teatro della Toscana. A stage material of unheard-of ferocity: the irresistible rise of a delinquent adolescent to the top of the Kremlin. In 2000 Vladimir Putin tells his life for the only time, doing so publicly ahead of the presidential elections. It is a chilling biography, in which he spares no details of extreme violence, describing himself as a street-raised delinquent soon wholly devoted to the cause of the Secret Services, experienced by him as a mirage of power and absolute control. Stefano Massini starts from that material and combines it with excerpts from Putin’s speeches and conferences, as well as revelations from many historical essays and reconstructions about the shadows of his vertiginous ascent to power. What emerges is a ferocious and devastating account, against the backdrop of the collapsing Soviet system that overturns everything in an endless apocalypse. The text — published by Einaudi and being translated into 18 languages — arrives on major Italian stages after the television version that in spring 2026 saw Massini don the role of Putin in prime time, with great media attention, in what critic Aldo Grasso in Corriere della Sera called “a hypnotic monologue that guts the meanders of Putin’s psyche… an operation of rare density.” Dates: - Tuesday 24 November 8:30 PM - Wednesday 25 November 7:00 PM - Friday 27 November 8:30 PM - Saturday 28 November 8:30 PM - Sunday 29 November 4:30 PM - Tuesday 01 December 8:30 PM - Wednesday 02 December 7:00 PM - Friday 04 December 8:30 PM - Saturday 05 December 8:30 PM - Sunday 06 December 4:30 PM