June 21, 2025

The (Un)Double – October 9-19

September 25 – November 2, 2025

The Downstairs
66 East 4th Street
New York, NY 10003

Tickets:
Adults:
Students/Seniors:
La MaMa Members:

10 @ $10 Tickets:

Ticket prices are inclusive of all fees.

Running Time: 85 minutes

Ages 14+

by The Useless Room

“The (Un)Double is a dark mirror. It reflects our fears, our conflicts. It is theatre that does not tell, but shows. It does not explain, but makes you feel. And it forces us to look inside. Even when we don’t want to.”
— Andrea DiMaso, Notizie Teatrali (Venice, Italy)

ABOUT

Socratic dialogue, psychiatric intake exam, dance/movement, and literary adaptation—The (Un)Double, inspired by Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novella The Double. Taking the audience through the lens of several real-life icons of doubleness, it dissects the space between the self, the ideal, and the unreliable if not violent role of narrative. From Dostoevsky’s incisive characterization of the human desire to be seen as someone we are not, a complicated journey emerges by which one maintains the self.

How dangerous is the desire to become an image of oneself, and where does that image come from? Focusing in on extreme cases of doubleness today, the performance asks how does The Double pathology manifest in contemporary society, and is there a point at which it can be identified and rerouted?

CREDITS

Company The Useless Room
Written and Directed by Anthony Nikolchev adapted after Fyodor Dostoevsky’s “The Double”
Co-creation Lukasz Przytarski
Performers A. Nikolchev, L. Przytarski, Chris Polick, and collaboration from WD
Co-direction Gema Galiana
Scenic Design John Isaac Watters
Sound Design John Zalewski
Light Design Teresa Nagel
Video Design Keith Skretch
Technical Direction Lucy Jenkins
Stage Management Erin Newsom
Producer Rory James Leech, Ornella Salloum

Developed with the help of Teatro Romea Murcia, Dance at the Odyssey, with Stacy Dawson Stearns through a Responsive Residency at CultureHub LA and the CalArts Reef Residency.

THE USELESS ROOM

Recently featured in the 2025 Venice Biennale Teatro under the artistic direction of Willem Dafoe, The Useless Room is a performance company based in Los Angeles, CA run by Gema Galiana (Spain) and Anthony Nikolchev (USA). They began working together as founding members of a physical theater laboratory in the Grotowksi Institute in Poland. Select work includes: The Woman Decomposed, The Echoes Off The Walls Underground Are Louder Than Your Footsteps Above Me, The Last One, Ínsula, and The (Un)Double. In addition to the Venice Biennale, their work has been presented at The International Theater Olympics (India), Summerhall (Edinburgh), Ovalhouse (London), venues throughout Los Angeles and other strange alleyways. They work on the edges of narrative, with the physical body, scenographic material and text being equal material for visceral contemplation.