Radical Theatre For Radical Times

Radical Theatre For Radical Times – The Belarus Free Theatre.

Every member of this theatre company is an exile and risks arrest in their home country for their affiliation and commitment to making radical theatre. Belarus is known as the last dictatorship in Europe, formally under Nazi and then Russian control it declared independent sovereignty in 1990, three years following Alexander Lukashenko took presidency and the countries freedoms have been systematically curtailed over time. The rights of individuals are not equal and there is much ingrained misogyny and homophobia. The media is state controlled and independent, alternative viewpoints are not tolerated and journalists, actors, activists are harassed and imprisoned or go missing with eyebrow raising frequency. For Belarus, this form of media, the independently staged play, is dissident, it must be controlled. It is provoking fear in its native land because it questions the status quo. The directors of the theatre company Nikolai Khalazin and Natalia Kaliada are also in exile and have utilised the benefits of modern computer technology to ensure the company has been able to rehearse from exile, hiding or elsewhere in the world. The use of the Zoom platform has ensured this company stay together. The medium facilitates the action which in turn has the ability to spread the message through social media platforms and the company's British based website. The message is “We don’t Feel Free”.

This performance is an adaptation of?Alhierd Bacharevic’s 2017 novel of the same name, in which the Belarusian people have been swallowed up by an imaginary dystopian Russian superstate that has seized control. The performance is taking place on Thursday 10th?March 2022, two weeks following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Belarus shares its borders with both countries and the audience must be thinking they are a part of history in the making as they learn just how prophetic to the current reality Bacharevic’s novel is turning out to be.?

The performance should have made it to London two years previously and may have offered a strategic early warning of the undercurrents circling eastern European politics, however 2020 was dominated by the pandemic and rehearsals convened over lockdown and in isolation. We learn that many of the performers have already lost family the conflict. Both the audience and the actors must realise the dark significance of this plays timing in London and the powerful platform they had that evening with a full theatre. The storyline was layered and confusing and being performed in their native language with subtitles above the stage. This was a politically charged, surrealist and physical piece of performance combining every media possible. From the simplicity of fire as a reoccurring semiotic prop and light source, to the bones of the scripted, spoken word. The drone footage and animations that fill the back of the stage, the persistent and sense dominating live musical score by?Mark and Marichka Marczyk, the dancing, the singing, the illuminations, and sound effects recreated at the side of the stage by the core cast, all carrying the collective message of fear, espionage, apprehension, suffocation of free thought and oppression. It is Orwellian, and one cannot help but recognise the likeness between the dictatorship of Big Brother in 1984 and the imagined controlling force of Russia. The combined effect, a three-hour assault on the senses, shock treatment, exacerbated by the current news of impending war between Russia and Ukraine.

The Phrase “Where They Burn Books, The People Will Burn” flashes up at the rear of the stage at one point. And frequently we see a naked man arduously pushing a giant globe adorned with tattered, worn books across the stage. Was this symbolic of misinformation? Did the books symbolise knowledge? Later in the performance the lead character becomes a detective in a murder case with only a poetry book as evidence. What happens when the warning signs are ignored, when media is controlled and reshaped to fit the rhetoric necessary for control and war? Are we witnessing a fiction unfold or uncanny fact? We are unquestionably involved in shared resistance from the very act of purchasing the ticket and funding a production that would be censored in the company's homeland, yet we are complicit in our regimented seating within the theatre setting, we have no choice, we are now part of the rebellion, we are the crowd, we will help fuel the resistance to oppression simply by our presence. Right now, the BFT is free to perform but we are the captives, holding on to other captives. We bring hope. The devices in our pockets offer the medium by which to promote that resistance. Normally an act to be sneered at in a theatre, here, suddenly the space was filled with phones aloft, capturing the moment and obediently sharing the images on personal social media where the story of Dogs of Europe could bounce around in the digital echo-chamber a little longer promoting its surreptitious message.

Upon entering the theatre, the audience is met with a picture on each of the 1162 seats. The picture is a photograph of a political prisoner, the ages range from 15 – 80 years old and we are given a small amount of information about the individual, his or her age, last seen or how long the sentence they are serving is for crimes such as political dissent. We are told this at the end of the performance by the director who takes to the stage to inform us of the tragedy surrounding her cast members, the sacrifice, and the determination to continue to tell the story in unprecedented coincidental circumstances. At her request, the audience stand and hold aloft each photograph. The company photographer is asked to capture a still image of the audience and it is requested that this is to be shared via social media platforms. ‘Belarus Free Theatre Stands With Ukraine’ is projected behind the cast and the Ukranian flag is held. The message is strong and the medium most influential, online social, now has the ability to carry the theatre company's act of rebellion at light speed around the world. Instagram is now swamped with the same images of the political prisoners faces replacing those of the audience, the captives of the Barbican.

From scratched creation to finished product Dogs of Europe by the Belarus Free Theatre relied on digital media to ensure its message came into fruition.

As Sicart notes in Play Matters “Play as a political action is always ambiguous, on the fence of autotelic play and meaningful political activity. It is in that interplay, in that dance between autotelic and the purposeful, that play becomes a strong political instrument, capable of appropriating contexts that are otherwise forbidden...because it is play, it can thrive in situations of oppression, because it is play it can allow personal and collective expression, giving voices and actions when no one can be heard. (Sicart. 2014).

This is reflective through deliberate and planned subversion, the BFT resolutely using the craft of play acting to back revolution and free thinking, to dispel fake news and propaganda with dark humour and raw acting. So honest was this performance that the lead actor at one point requiring no support of any media was left to run naked, he circled the stage for the entire interval before assuming his next character and leading the audience into act 2. This was brave theatre, ‘A dance between creativity and nihilism’ (Sicart. 2014), this was dangerous play that would be reliant on the reception of a brave audience to realise and promote its timely political undertones, these players certainly can thrive in situations of oppression.