5 minute read
THEATRICAL PASSPORTS
by SDC Journal
BY MICHAEL JOHN GARCÉS
In July of this year, a Moscow court sentenced director Zhenya Berkovich and playwright Svetlana Petriychuk to six years in prison after a trial behind closed doors for “justifying terrorism” through their award-winning play Finist the Brave Falcon. In truth, their production is a powerful denunciation of terrorism as well as a rigorous critique of institutionalized misogyny by two artists who dared to raise their voices against authoritarianism.
I first encountered this play in early 2021, in the midst of the pandemic shutdown, when I was invited by Philip Arnoult and Howard Shalwitz to attend, virtually, Moscow’s annual “Golden Mask Festival” and, along with directors Yury Urnov and Blanka Zizka, participate in a panel on HowlRound, sharing our responses to the productions we had experienced. We were asked to see a minimum number of productions over the course of a week, of which I viewed nine.
The panel was, ironically, subtitled “Russian Theatre Lives!” I remember being amused by the hopeful and assertive exclamation point. I think the idea was that the stagecraft, vision, and sheer range in terms of style and content would demonstrate to those of us from other countries that the theatre field in Russia was flourishing. And so it did, at least for me, being very impressed by productions such as Andrey Moguchy’s A Tale of the Last Angel, Kirill Serebrennikov’s The Man With No Name, and Yury Kvyatkovsky’s Spin.
But Finist the Brave Falcon is the production that most impressed me at the time and has stayed most vivid in my memory. Produced by SOSO Daughters, an independent theatre project founded by Berkovich, it was one of the only productions at the festival I am aware of that was independent of government support—and, theoretically, oversight. It was completely created, produced, and staffed by women.
It is very much an ensemble play, masterfully directed by Berkovich. It tells the stories of Russian women who are groomed and recruited online by ISIS and other like organizations to leave Russia as brides for—take your pick—jihadists or terrorists in combat zones in Syria and various other fronts in the theatre of war where ISIS actively engages in combat. What they experience is nothing like they had imagined. These women, brutalized by their treatment and by the war, either manage to find a way to return or are captured and deported to Russia, where they are questioned, arrested, put on trial as terrorists themselves, almost always found guilty, and incarcerated.
The production uses various strategies to theatricalize the trials and experiences of these women. The play is warm, precisely staged, makes lovely use of music in ways both witty and moving, and is often very funny. And is deadly serious at the core. The cast was charismatic, talented, and deeply committed. The play examines these women’s dilemmas with nuance and ambiguity, deftly drawing complex portraits of various characters who share the same name, Maryushka, but are nonetheless distinct and individualized.
The production is a fiercely feminist work that clearly stakes out a stringently anti-terrorist position while at the same time offering an uncompromising critique of institutionalized misogyny in Russia as well as the unbearable violence and mistreatment experienced by these women in Syria. It is complex and critical in the way of the best political art, and embraces the moral and ethical ambiguity of their impossible choices. It felt important. It felt urgent. It felt necessary. It was beautiful, as aesthetically exciting as anything I saw at the festival that week, but it was a visceral and disruptive beauty that was engaging and activating.
And, of course, the subtitle of our panel, as it turns out, was indeed ironic. Bluntly ironic. What happened in the play happened to the creators. It is a case study in how Russian theatre—and theatre anywhere—might actually die.
The injustice of the arrest and imprisonment of Zhenya Berkovich and Svetlana Petriychuk should worry any director or writer anywhere. It should trouble anyone who works in or cares about theatre or the arts. It should frighten any citizen who cares about freedom of speech and expression. In a time when schools and libraries across our country are banning books, when theatres and other arts organizations are being forced to program ever more conservatively, when election denialism is rampant, and when women’s rights and trans rights are under dire attack, it doesn’t take much to imagine a similar scenario here in the United States. The attack on their freedom of expression is an attack on ours.
Finist the Brave Falcon, in its vivid lyrical beauty and grievous dramatic depth, is one of the most memorable and effective productions I’ve experienced in the last few years. But even if it had not been, the terrible tragedy of the creators’ persecution would be hugely important, with the potential for devastating effects throughout the world. Politicians inclined toward the repression of free speech and expression take their cues from what is happening in other countries and what the response is. We cannot forget what is happening to these artists. We have to use our platforms, our theatres, our votes, our online presence, to keep them in mind and heart. And keep theatre alive.
Finist the Brave Falcon may be viewed on demand at stagerussia.com/finist.
Michael John Garcés has served on the SDC Executive Board since 2006 and is currently Executive Vice President. He is a freelance director and playwright based in Los Angeles and a Professor of Practice in the English Department at Arizona State University.
