SURKOV

How do you create a leader? How do you stage reality? And what happens when politics turns into theatre?

"SURKOV" tells the story of Vladislav Surkov – a former theatre director and advisor to Putin. The man who formulated the idea of “managed democracy” in modern Russia and helped turn power into a struggle over images, narratives, and emotions. Surkov transformed politics into performance and the world into a stage. What began in the Kremlin became a blueprint for modern spin, with echoes reaching all the way into Trump-era America.

On stage, Thomas Levin stands alone in a rehearsal room with a script in his hand. From here, Surkov’s world unfolds: from Moscow’s advertising and art scenes to the corridors of the Kremlin and the machinery of propaganda, where reality is shaped like a theatrical production and everyone is forced to play their part—right up to the bloody consequences of today.

"SURKOV" is a sharp, unsettling, and darkly satirical monologue about power, manipulation, and our own urge to believe in the stories that promise order, direction, and meaning.