Posts Tagged ‘theatre’
Magnitsky Play at Teatr.doc Hits Harder Than Ever
Some things remain relevant longer than you would expect.
Take the death of Sergei Magnitsky. This muck-raking attorney was allowed to die in a Moscow prison in November 2009. That story was still making news when Teatr.doc opened a show called “One Hour Eighteen” in the early summer of 2010. The show examined the actions of several people in close proximity to the prisoner when he mysteriously was allowed to die, apparently handcuffed, on a cold floor in a prison cell.
Teatr.doc has just reopened a second, renewed version of the play with several scenes added to respond to events of recent years. In fact, at the performance I attended last weekend there were lines drawn from that very day’s biggest news — the passing by the Russian Duma of the so-called “anti-Magnitsky” law. This measure banning Americans from adopting Russian children is widely seen as a response to the so-called Magnitsky Act, passed by the U.S. Congress and signed by President Barack Obama two weeks ago. This act bans Russian officials suspected of being involved in the death of Magnitsky from traveling to the United States.
In short, unlike most stories entering the endless news cycle, the Magnitsky case is not going away. Mikhail Ugarov, who co-directed “One Hour Eighteen” with Talgat Batalov and who performs a scene in the new version, told me ruefully minutes before curtain time last week that he suspects a third version of the play is not far away.
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From Russia with relevance
Sputnik Theatre Company specialises in bringing new Russian work to London. Next month it unravels the story of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who died in detention after suing Putin’s government, director Noah Birksted-Breen tells Oliver Poole.
Ask people their knowledge of Russian theatre and it is likely to begin and end with Anton Chekhov. A few may cite the works of Maxim Gorky, Mikhail Bulgakov or even Alexander Ostrovsky — but knowledge of the contemporary scene is largely non-existent.
London director Noah Birksted-Breen hopes to help correct this omission with his debut of One Hour Eighteen Minutes, one of the most relevant of modern Russian plays, in London this month.
“People generally don’t know much about Russia here,” he says. “Hopefully those who come will know more than before. Ever since 2005, there has been a tremendous number of new plays and many of them, like this one, address what is happening now.”
One Hour Eighteen Minutes is certainly set in the contemporary Russia of Pussy Riot and crackdowns on opposition protesters familiar to London audiences from watching the evening news.
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The Magnitsky affair: let theatre judge
A British theatre company has brought a play about final hours of Sergei Magnitsky’s life to the London stage. Irina Shumovich reviews “One hour eighteen minutes”.
Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian lawyer who uncovered the biggest tax fraud in Russian history – the theft of $230 million – died on 16 November 2009 in the Moscow prison ‘Matrosskaya Tishina’ (Sailor’s Silence). He was kept in pre-trial detention for 11 months in squalid conditions, developed pancreatitis, was denied medical treatment and left to die in dreadful suffering. Thanks to the relentless efforts of his employers and associates, Magnitsky’s death has brought corporate and government misconduct and corruption in Russia to the attention of the international media, foreign governments and the general public.
In June 2010, One hour eighteen, a play by Elena Gremina describing the last 78 minutes of Magnitsky’s life, was premiered in Moscow. Noah Birksted-Breen, founder of the Sputnik theatre company dedicated to promoting Russian drama in Britain, translated the play into English.
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Russian play about judicial corruption comes to the Capitol
The City of Baltimore has recently found itself under the harsh gaze of the Russia Today: in a 500 word piece, shaped by an hour or so of immersion in Baltimore’s one-block red zone, and many hours evidently spent watching “The Wire,” a Russian reporter dutifully described Baltimore as a war zone of economic imbalance. A few days later, Russia Today parroted a Baltimore Sun piece describing Baltimore’s homeless problem.
Now, with a production of One Hour Eighteen Minutes, it looks like Baltimore is ready to return the favor with a ruthless theatrical investigation of Russian judicial corruption.
On November 16, One Hour Eighteen Minutes, directed by Baltimore based Russian director Yury Urnov and supported by the Baltimore-based Center for International Theatre Development, is going to play at the Cannon House Office Building in Washington DC.
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So, Do Theater and Politics Mix in Russia?
Jailed businessman Mikhail Khodorkovsy and writer Lyudmila Ulitskaya came together rather like Plato and Socrates last week to discuss the state of the State of Russia.
No, this was not an unexpected event involving the actual individuals, it was an unexpected event involving actors — Alexei Yudnikov and Yevdokiya Germanova – who played them on a stage.
And, yes, it was unexpected.
There are few things Russian theater avoids with more dexterity and conviction than politics. It has almost always been this way. In the 19th century plays that pushed too far into political or social commentary were routinely banned. Even after the revolution there was just a short window of time, during which directors and writers used theater as a mouthpiece for sociopolitical topics. Those efforts quickly fell by the wayside or turned into propaganda.
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