A absurdist comedy built around a couple locked in an endless, trivial argument while catastrophe looms outside their walls is about to take over a converted Fort Greene church. Delirium, adapted and directed by Igor Golyak, will have its New York premiere at The Space at Irondale, with previews beginning September 8 and opening night set for September 24. Tickets are priced at $49, and the run continues through October 24.
The production, as reported by the Brooklyn Eagle, follows an acclaimed run in Boston earlier in 2026 before making its way to Brooklyn. Golyak based the play on Eugène Ionesco’s Frenzy for Two, or More, a 1962 script that, according to the Jewish Journal, centers on a couple arguing over whether a turtle and a snail are identical while an apocalyptic war rages just outside their apartment. The original text, published in 1963, was written in the shadow of post-WWII existential anxieties.
Starring in the New York run are Andrey Burkovskiy and Chulpan Khamatova, both of whom also appeared in the 2026 Boston production, per the Brooklyn Eagle. The Boston run played the Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts from June 18 through July 2, as documented by BroadwayWorld.
Two Actors Who Fled Russia in 2022
The casting carries real-world weight. Khamatova, long considered one of Russia’s top stage and film stars, fled the country in 2022 after publicly speaking out against the invasion of Ukraine and now lives in self-imposed exile in Latvia, according to background compiled from Boston Spirit Magazine. Burkovskiy, a graduate and former leading actor of the Moscow Art Theatre, left Russia the same year following the political upheaval and relocated his family to the United States.
That personal history gives an absurdist script about a couple squabbling while war closes in an unmistakable resonance. Golyak began workshopping the adaptation with Khamatova and Burkovskiy in August 2025 during an artistic residency at Dartmouth College provided by the New York Theatre Workshop, according to Golyak’s own account on his Substack, which described a multi-day process in which the displaced actors explored Ionesco’s text through found objects and physical theater.
A Director Riding High Off Broadway
Golyak, a Kyiv-born Jewish artist who immigrated to the United States in 1990, founded Arlekin Players Theatre in 2009 in Needham, Massachusetts, as a company built by Soviet-bloc immigrants, per background documented on Wikipedia. Hoodline previously profiled Golyak’s tech-forward Needham troupe and its focus on immigrant narratives.
His stock in New York theater has climbed sharply since his Off-Broadway staging of Our Class won four 2025 Lucille Lortel Awards, including Outstanding Revival and Outstanding Director, following acclaimed runs at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and Classic Stage Company, according to DC Theater Arts. That success is bringing familiar faces back together: the New York production of Delirium reunites Golyak with much of his Our Class creative team, including scenic designer Jan Pappelbaum, costume designer Sasha Ageeva, composer Anna Drubich, lighting designer Jeff Adelberg, and sound designer Denis Zabiyaka, BroadwayWorld reports.
An Aquarium Onstage, and a Landmark Venue
Golyak’s staging leans into striking visual choices. The production features a large onstage aquarium with a live swimming fish, creating what The Arts Fuse describes as a visual counterpoint between human existential panic and nature’s indifference, alongside sight gags, red alarm lights, and physical comedy woven through the darker material.
The show’s new home, The Space at Irondale, is a 6,000-square-foot flexible performance hall with 29-foot ceilings and wrap-around balconies, housed inside the landmarked Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church in Fort Greene, according to the Irondale Center. The venue, home to the Irondale Ensemble Project, seats up to 200 people.
Delirium is produced by Craig Balsam, Patrick Catullo, and Thomas M. Neff, per the Brooklyn Eagle. Balsam is known for producing Merrily We Roll Along, Catullo for producing Hadestown, and Neff for producing An Enemy of the People. Their names sit alongside a Fort Greene venue and a director whose immigrant-founded company has spent more than a decade turning displacement into onstage material.
