 Hello everyone. While our panelists all turn on their screens. I think they're all arriving. I want to let you know that this is a conversation on howl round about the 2021 Golden Mask Festival in Moscow and specifically the Russian case, which took place April 1 through 6. The Russian case is an annual selection of recent productions curated specifically for international audiences. And this year, because of the pandemic, it was shown online for the first time. Our conversation is sponsored by CITD, which is the Center for International Theater Development in Baltimore, Maryland. And a quick note to those tuning in live, please feel free to share comments with each other via the chat function. But we will not be able to respond as there are many exciting shows to discuss. And we want to keep our conversation under an hour, but we promise we will read your chat afterwards. Philip. Why don't you kick us off. Welcome everybody. All roads lead to Russia. I made my first trip to Eastern Europe in 1975 at the invitation of Grotowski. And between 1975 and 80, I was in Bulgaria, Poland, Romania. And again, I found all these tethers back to Russia that acting schools in those countries were based on the Russian model. In 1980, I was supposed to go to Moscow for the Olympic Festival. And then we boycott at the Olympics. And I finally made my first trip to Moscow in 1981. And in those days, the theater was not accessible at all. You either, you know, had to be getting your degree in Slavic studies somewhere, or you were entirely controlled official delegations. I went over with it on a number of times I had a couple of State Department sponsored trips. And in those, in that period I met a really bright young producer Edward Boyakov, who began talking about a way of opening this wonderful theater world to the others to us. In 2000, he made the first Russia case. And I think there were 30 of us that went. And I've been to this is the 25th edition because they couldn't have one last year. I'm very proud of my little golden mask black that I got for just showing up. And I would go there and I over the years, we took about 70 people 70 Americans Howard. And a couple of times I met Yuri there when he was 25 years old I think 20 years ago he worked with us as a translator and has been with us ever since. And I was always surprised at the work that I found I found the young Dima Krimov there. And then 12 years ago. So many artists, Russian artists, but what fed me the most was sitting at a coffee table or in a tea shop or in a restaurant with fellow Americans much smarter than I was talking about this work. And that really informed so much of my understanding of this great theater culture. So I really wanted to see in this special year where there were 40 over 40 I think 43 Americans signed up for the virtual festival. And 80 80 was I think 80 or 90 with the top guests of any festival I ever went to they had over 400 people watching this one. And so I asked Howard if he'd be willing to, he's one of the smartest people I know if he'd be willing to bring some other very smart people. Initially I just wanted to sit and listen to make this speech and listen but I'm, I'm down to talk about a couple of shows but I welcome you all to this really unique opportunity at a very unique time in our history and in the history of Russia, and in the history of our two theater cultures that I believe have the potential of being more connected now than ever. So, thanks. Yeah, Phillip. You didn't you didn't you failed to mention that you're the director and founder of CIT D and my name is Howard shallow it's I am an associate director of CIT D along with Yuri. And many of you know me as the artistic director emeritus of the woolly mammoth theater company in Washington DC. Before we dive in. I want to thank VJ Matthew and how around, as well as CIT D's ace project manager brandis Thompson who is behind the scenes with us today and providing photos above all thanks to our panelists who include three of my favorite directors in the United States for jumping in on short notice and I mean short notice we we crammed a bunch of shows and now we're talking about it. So let's go around and introduce ourselves and just as a teaser if you would just each share one very brief observation about the shows you witnessed in this year's golden mask Blanca. So I'm blank as the sky and co found the director of the Wilma theater and now co artist the director of the Wilma. And I think for me, the most interesting thing about the festival about the few shows that I saw was this interrogation of political and historical situation, and how it is in constant dialogue with today through amazing visual vision and amazing visual world that is being created in this fantastic acting that you see. I agree, Michael. Hey, Michael got says artistic director cornerstone theater company I'm coming at you from the unseeded and occupied land of the tongue vacation Gabrielle peoples also known as Los Angeles. One thing I was very struck by was just the wide range of aesthetic strategies and approaches to grappling with text and grappling with performance and and creating pictures of momentum on stage. And yet, in the context of that variety that was always a really strong very singular division vision for what we were seeing, whether that was a tour, often directors vision, or whether it was collaborative ensembles vision was extremely And I, the variety was such that it seemed almost like a international festival like something like the event on medicano bullet are something like that. And I suppose that's because Russia's infinite. But nonetheless, it was striking that in the in the festival of celebrating one nation's theater was so varied and very exciting for that. Thank you. Hi, I'm Yuri Ornov use him, he's pronounced. I'm the court is the director of the Wilma theater and also the associate director of CTD. And probably what strikes me and what keeps striking me is this weird paradoxical correlation between Russian politics and Russian art. It almost feels like the worst is the first the better is the second. Basically, we really are probably in the deepest hole we've been since 1970s, but theater is blooming, right? I mean, professional quality, I mean, aesthetical variety. I mean, the level of audiences interest and even political outspokenness. I mean, I'm sure we'll talk about Boris today, but you know, being an exquisite work of theater art. It's also quite an open and clear satire, you know, on Putin happening right in front of our eyes and performed by Timofey Tribunsov actually got the golden mask for the best male part for that. And I think for a reason. Great. Philip, a big, a little observation. I can't. It's very difficult for an American to appreciate how important theater is in Russia that the golden mass festival in the regular time would be the awards would be, broadcast all over the country from the Bolshoi ballet. These are Oscar level events. And I put that together with my years of seeing theater in that country. And I've seen the fewest empty seats in Russia than any other theater culture. I've seen in the world. This isn't the life. It's a lifeblood. And it certainly was telling stories before 1989. And I think, excuse me, that had a lot to do with 1989. And I think what we saw this past week is pregnant with change. Yeah. And I would, I have a tangential point to add, I just want to add that the quality of the video work that we saw. The subtitling in particular the English subculting was absolutely superb. And I think it made this year's Russian case in some and I've been there a couple times in person but it made this year's in some ways more accessible to more people than ever before. So there was something even though we were in a pandemic there was something a historic opportunity that this year's presented and when I see the quality of those videos I drool just a little bit because I want more. More American content out there. All right, well let's with those observations on the table let's dig into some of the shows that most that at least most of us were able to watch and as we introduce each one brand is in the background is going to share a few production photos courtesy of our friends at the Russian case. And Yuri, you know, none of us are experts in Russian theater, except you Yuri, you, you might qualify. You're the closest we have in this group to a bona fide expert on Russian theater. So why don't you get us started with one of your with one of one of the shows that you watched. Thank you, Howard for no pressure. Great. So I'm supposed to talk about the tale of the last angel. Actually, yesterday there was a ceremony and the tail once won the main prize, won the best production on big stage there is division their best production on big stage best production or best production on small stage. So this is directed by Maguchi, one of our lead directors and probably is an amazing example of what we mean when we say directors theater in Russia, which certainly means far beyond just directing a play for the far beyond just staging it while the plays there. And I think it's directed very well it's staged very well. In the center there is quite a realistic plot. A young guy is being thrown out of his apartment by gangsters. Hello 90s. He is on the run. He finds a shelter in the insane asylum and other, you know, quite transparent metaphor for what the place was at that moment. He meets friends there and they decide to escape now the asylum because they want to find the main characters classmate his love, and they go on a journey. And so at least half of the production is the journey. They are on the run they start from a small place then they arrive to a bigger place Minsk now the capital of Belarus Belarus and then they are on the trip to Moscow. It ends ambivalently you can say it's success they find the classmate he meets his love, or maybe they die or maybe actually both both is true right maybe both actually happens. That's the plot. Now, but that's only the start what Maguchi is I think is trying to do is he is trying to explore the phenomenon of the 90s. This pivot point really in the Russian history. So he takes us on this journey with all the tools, directorial tools he has in possession and everything is all tools are equal. It's verbal text, it's visual imagery, it's genre. I don't know what is what is what is stronger you know the vision, the vision of the boy who is emerging physically from the huge chicken egg born as an born into this new reality or the 20 minute monologue of one of the characters that goes into the intermission. When we say 90s, I mean, not all of us live through that. So just a brief reminder, right? It's the fall of the empire. It's to coups in Moscow tanks on Moscow streets while capitalism state property for grabs because of the mafia crime violence abundance for the new rich and millions of the new poor. And at the same time, almost unlimited freedom of mass media of speech of political choice, open borders, new technologies, no art censorship, sort of time of big hopes, high stakes and extremely low price of life at the same time. So what we're watching we're watching again this this boys on the run through this reality of the 90s. But this wouldn't be enough for the director of Maguchi's level. So he adds another layer. He immerses the reality of the 90s into the mythological context of Russian folk Russian fairy tales. For example, the main character actually in his double they both look at the same time as the youth of the 90s as the young person from the 90s, but also as this mythological character of even the fool probably one of the most prominent characters of the Russian fairy tales. He is in love with the Swan Princess who represents his his classmate and his love. She is wearing a traditional costume and she is writing on the segue at the same time. And at some point in the production, these lines, this levels mix, they merge. The mythological meets the real. And this is when it's already hard to say, are we actually seeing three boys on the run? Are we seeing three angels of love, hope and faith trying to make it through the dark woods of their newborn motherland? And this is I think where the production reaches its emotional climax. Yeah, I think this idea of multiple layers is a is a persistent feature. Michael, you saw it as well. What did you what was your what was your take on it? Yeah, I mean, I thought the piece was pretty delightful. It was a lot of fun to watch it. I mean, in some ways it was a classic road trip play, which was actually, you know, I mean there was a real, it was a strong line that took you through this crazy adventure with a lot of layers on top of that which was fun to try to decipher both in the context of my limited expert on Russian history or contemporary Russian life, but at the same time, mirroring, you know, you know, a lot of things happening in different parts of the world. And so, you know, I mean, a way of thinking about it really sort of even understanding a stylistically for me is thinking about it as sort of a cross between like Hunter Thompson, leaving Las Vegas type thing with with various different levels of reality happening at the same time. So thinking of it as a sort of straight fantasia on on Russian themes, you know, I mean like as as Kushner sort of sort of took on the 80s as a moment of rapid capitalism and sort of a culture deep crisis. I think this display does the same thing with the 90s and in ways that were profoundly moving. Wow. This was certainly one of the big shows. It's about three and a half hours long, something like that but it's, it's just stunning to watch. Michael why don't you keep Philip you want to add something. You're muted Phil. So you're muted. Yeah, you go. I followed Muguchi for about as long as I followed Dima Krimov. I saw his early work. He had a small company in St. Petersburg called the formal knee theater. And right now he's at the top of his game and he can write his own ticket. We've come so close to getting this man looked at in America and we never made the right connection. And I thought that piece that I saw in the festival was the most muscular piece I'd ever seen him do and I've probably seen a thousand of his pieces over the years. It was really a triumph. Well, maybe we can we can pray for the opportunity to get his work to the United States. Michael, take, take us on another little journey here. Yeah. Sure, this one is a man with no name. I will leave pronunciations to my fellow panelists, but this is a piece that was made in a collaborative way, at least notionally. It's, it's what's being termed horizontal theater. So it's a group of people, not necessarily devising it, although I think partially, but certainly a group of people, not, not necessarily in service to our tourist vision, but working together in this case the performer the composer, who also performed as well as a set designer, and a director and the AD of the Google Center. So, I'll work together with a dramaturg and writer to create this piece. And it's based on the life and work of a fairly obscure, I think even to a Russian audience from the Russians I've talked to 19th century writer who's also a mystic and an inventor of musical instruments like he was a character in a Dostoevsky novel in a way. But it's, I think, I think part of the point of this play, which is absolutely not a bio play is the obscurity of the source, which creates a kind of freedom for the for the creators. And they base it on on roughly his life, I think, but also on sort of esoteric pretexts that that are purported at least to be the basis of the structure of the piece. And I think it's more of a pretext for their own exploration of themes, and of craft really. And I think of the work more as a composition and a play per se. And what was really lovely and actually rather glorious about the piece for me was it as a purely aesthetic experience it's, it was poetic in the best sense the word it was carefully structured and rigorous, quite lean, I would say, but extremely intuitive and sourced in the subconscious. So giving over giving over to was kind of like having a waking dream which was, which is a state I like in the theater. And I think it is not possible to divorce it from its context so it's hard not to sort of sift through it and see dynamics in it that are situated in the sort of socio political context of contemporary Russia. And particularly the situation the Google Center which I'll let Blanca or Howard or Yuri expand on is they I think are more knowledgeable than I, but there is there is a certain political pressure. A real and menacing political pressure that's being exerted on artists now and it's hard not to see it in that context, but the piece itself I think feels rather abstracted. It's essentially a duet between this, the remarkable performer, Nikita Kukushkin, I did my best there, who gives a really precise incredibly physical performance, and the composer who plays what is ultimately the set, which is a 10 pianos that have been turned into one giant machine of an instrument. And it sort of gets revealed over time through lighting and staging which is quite beautiful. And it's, it's, it's sort of an elaborate and complex version of a prepared John Cage piano essentially, and both performers interact with pianos and and, and striking ways, and the sounds that come from it are quite glorious. And, you know, I think the progression of play from moment to moment from scenarios scenario scenario is a sort of way of, again, exploring theme exploring the sort of emotional journey that the audience is on with the performer. But it's sort of like watching, I don't know, theatrical equivalent of box art of fugue or, or that Coleman skies of America like there are sort of, it's rooted in experience and you feel this sort of story, but it's not necessarily overt. And it was quite exciting. Can you just fill in the context with Cerebrennikov that Michael was referencing. I mean, just the basics are, are that he just came off is it two years of house arrest on basically what we consider trumped up charges of in bed bezel meant and it wasn't. Yeah, it was, and it was a saga in the Russian theater and probably the big turning point for the Russian theater when Cerebrennikov was brought to the old kind of dying theater of Google and transformed it into the Google center really created a new place out of that both physically bringing new audiences, bringing new aesthetics, bringing new actors, his students and at some point, because he was quite radical probably in his aesthetics, more in his politics, they came after him, right. So they tried to disturb the authorities. I mean, they, there was an attempt to destroy the center. There was an attempt, there was a big case in the court that kept going. He was under home arrest, but his managing director was actually in prison and another product producing director, you know, wasn't present for even longer than that. There was a huge pushback from the, at least at least in Moscow from the theater society, but probably around the country so he didn't end as bad as it could, but it was certainly a great challenge. Yeah, clearly one way to view the piece is through the lens of that experience that he and the whole company the Google center have been through but as you said Michael you can just set that all aside and just take it in on the purely aesthetic level and the incredible acrobatics and the flying pianos and you know all of the pyrotechnics of the piece Yeah, I do want to say that for me, coming from that world, it was very much about that experience of alienation and seclusion, you know, because when you are on your own when you are when you are stuck without being in contact with the world around you, you start to like talk about think about obscurity and you find this writer right and I love the way it started the piece started that this actor comes among the audience and he's a discussion do you know this right here on this book right and there are maybe two or three people in the audience who do is that question about like what is memory how long do we last actually our lives or lives to remember how even memory lasts you know how long does it last and that sense of unbetter than comes him as as I, you know the character that is losing his, his, his hearing as he's at the, you know, his highest power of losing and again that sense of isolation and in capability of of actually practice your art I think that was very much imbued by that experience of home arrest. Yeah, the way that politics are sort of embedded in the aesthetics is certainly astonishing. Blanca, why don't you push us forward with another show that had a very strong political ramifications. So, you know, I really love Dima Grimoff's work. You know we'll be working with him at the Wilma on a check of peace but so I know him a little bit from from also the workshop situations at the Wilma. And you know Dima says that he's very interested when he looks at the word he's interested only in the nuts, nuts in the word, you know represent a crisis and he's not interested in the space between the nuts he is interested only in the nuts. So, so his theater becomes very episodic because he goes from a picture, or from crisis to crisis to crisis right. And in some ways what is good enough for me was really difficult because of this episodic quality to, and because it was really theater for Russians, you know, you record the satire, and you need to live in the country in order to understand the satire. So for me it was a little bit tough but as I understand it, it's a satire on Putin, and a little bit also on the relationship between Putin and Alexei Navalny, you know, the opposite opposition leader who was who was poisoned by by Putin. The play itself has several roots you know there is a historical Boris Godunov who lived around the same time as Shakespeare in the time of trouble Russian history is called time of trouble. And then there is a push can play from 1830 that is dealing with the historical time you know and the character of Boris Godunov is this conspire, who is killing the son of the son in order to to to to retain power and plots around you know has actually the assassinated assassinated as then being found out and assassinated or or or or or a judge and and and and I don't know it's very complicated history Yuri you must you must jump in anytime you please please. And, and then it's dealing with today's and let's put in right so we have all these three levels. And, and then I found it very confusing because I didn't understand it, and so I asked Yuri to explain it to me. So Yuri maybe you should do that again. Well, again, I do think that I do think that there is there are parts of that that are very straightforward and actually more straightforward than Dima usually goes and probably more straightforward than many other theaters go with with the figure of the leader with the figure of Putin in this case. I do think that the opening sequence it's this it's you know it's this inauguration it's putting getting into power I think that's what that's specifically the moment he is looking at. He's not he's looking at the early Putin he's looking at the person who is suddenly finds himself with all this power in his hands and suddenly starts thinking himself as of a supernatural human being right and this and this is what I think is doing so brilliantly. So for me this first this first part was probably worth the production. Honestly, the whole production was probably the most exciting piece in the festival because it combined this to it combine this amazing cream of text of bright clear standing images like the one when the coffins are brought out on stage and we see the former rules rulers of Russia whom Putin is asking the advice to praying to crazily and trying to put himself in the row with them. The same time Putin is putting him in the row with them not in the coffin exactly but sort of on the way to. So I do think there is there is a lot of real meat there for for for emotional meet political meet for the Russia. And I would I would just add that, you know, a deep theme of cream off began as a designer and then has evolved into being a major director. And I've seen several of his pieces before the level of the acting in this piece, the various confrontations between these everyday characters and the Putin figure, you know some of them just take your breath away, because they are so emotionalized and I felt for for cream off it was a higher level than we've maybe than I've ever seen before of emphasis on the power of the of the actors in those confrontations, you know, Philip go ahead. Yeah, and also it wasn't. It was in a very unique space. But this was not again, we weren't looking at a personium arch. But I don't know where was that done at the. It was the Moscow museum of the museum. Yeah, a museum of modern art on the on the upper floor. So it had this wonderful environmental feeling as well. Yeah, good point. I want to take a moment while we're talking about cream off to talk about the other other Dimitri cream off show in the Russian case, and it was a very in a very different vein than Boris. The title is we are all here. And this piece is a real treat for any American theater maker, especially for those of us in Washington DC. It's built around cream off own memories as a teenager of seeing the arena stage production of Thornton Wilders our town directed by Alan Schneider, when it toured to Moscow in 1973. And cream off recreate some key scenes from the production. There's a cream off stand in character who steps in and interacts with the actors and shares his memories of bringing his famous theater parents to see our town because he was so taken with it. He also slips in in the previous slide you saw this hilarious fantasy encounter between Anton check off and a famous con artist that helps explain why check off made the transition from being a short story writer to being a playwright and it's all sort of hilarious. But then he manages in the slide you're seeing now to sort of tear our hearts out with the final cemetery scene from our town and I've never seen the scene done better. And we need to we need to push on but I just wonder really quickly if the rest of you found this production as absolutely captivating as I did. I thought it was delightful. Really, really, really funny and surreal, you know, beautiful. And it had that typical Dima cream off talks about his work it's like laying a trail of breadcrumbs for the audience. So it's not conventional narrative cause and effect dramaturgy. It's like one thing creates an expectation for the next thing creates an expectation for the next thing and I thought he did that really, really well here. We're running a little bit behind so just, I'm just talking to all of us to move a little more quickly. Philip, give us an introduction to of Gorbachev. Yeah, Elvis Hermione's was a Latvian director took this very stay on that slide, if you will, because the photographs don't do this service, because what he took was this biography of Gorbachev and his wife, but there they are in character with wigs playing at a certain moment, but behind them, you can see two actor dressing tables. So the play is a laminate of two actors coming in to run lines together. Right, taking off their speedos should their fancy sneakers, talking to each other with side comments, then coming script in hand, and playing the scene. And then all of a sudden, putting on a wig, or a piece of costume, and then immersing themselves in the reality of that moment and time. If you'll flip to the next slide. These are two really fine and well known actors and they just are pitch perfect in playing each of those levels of laminate. That's the young, that's the first date. You really can't see but it's right towards the end where I remember Robin Williams says how could you run a country with a map of something something on your forehead, Estonia on your forehead, I think what he said. But I just found it a delight. It, it personalized, and it's a huge hit in Moscow. But it really, you know, his final speeches about how freedom is more important than he is. They're almost like looking at heroic statues of these two people. And I was just stunned by how precise and there was no question that where was the meat on this one it was there every moment about. Yeah I mean a base at its core it's just this beautiful love story. Yeah. And, and, and almost appears to be non political but Yuri I think you said in our discussion if you're doing a play about Gorbachev it's it's immediately political because of the feelings that Russians have about him, but it certainly doesn't put the political forward. Yeah, and also just the Jack I think there is a level of statement there too. It's, you're watching that and you're subconsciously consciously juxtaposing to what is happening there today and that feels, I think this is the work that is really happening during the production in the head and the mind of the audience. This is what this is what we had. This is what we lost. This is what we have now. I think that's the tension, and also certainly the presence of Gorbachev himself in the audience is was a strong gesture. Thank you for sending video with Gorbachev is there at the very end and congratulates the cast so talk about layers of the experience. Michael Blanca any, any little thoughts to add. I'll be a slightly dissenting voice just and again from a perspective of somebody who's not Russian theater going habitually. There was something about the nostalgia in the piece that felt a little, that felt a little dangerous was there was a sense of mentality to it like it was so absent of context. Like you didn't even know that they had children, much less that he had a political career basically other than sort of, you know, he had to go to work and he was away from her which was a drag because they were so in love. And so the very end of the play when the kids were around the death bed, and he just sort of seemed like a nice guy who somehow became the chair of the Soviet Communist Party. And that, I mean, it felt like Nancy and Ronnie in same time next year, in a way, and it was beautifully crafted and sophisticated and how was put together was very sophisticated production, same time next year as opposed to a typical I don't know regional theater production of it, but nonetheless, I was troubled by the sort of. Again, I'm seeing it absent context that in context might give it a whole different shades of meaning and contrasting Gorbachev with Putin and etc etc, but just seeing it for me, it was a little it was the nostalgia and the sense of mentality of a word a little troubling, although I could admire the craft. No, but it's doing something very, very sly. You're, you're absolutely right. And it's interesting in the in the after party of the golden mask which I attended. You know, it very much divided Russian opinion, sort of 5050s, you know people who loved it and people who who kind of found it. You know, not not that that significant so it's great to hear that that voice. Well, listen, I'm going to push ahead and I'm going to actually cheat slightly in this round. And because I want to briefly lift up two shows that featured women directors and all women ensembles and this is something that I have to say has been quite rare in the Russian case and perhaps in Russian theater in general over the years. The first is a frost the red nose, which is an experimental chamber opera based on a famous 19th century narrative poem by neck cross off and it tells the story of a young peasant woman who essentially works herself to death to provide for her children after her husband dies if I'm reading it right there again there's a lot of layers, even to the original narrative poem. It is seen as a kind of proto feminist work extolling the devotion and self sacrifice of Russian women. The music in this chamber opera is eerie and dream like and it features these choral episodes sung by young women and girls and an astonishing long solo opera that's made up entirely of breathing and glottal sounds. So sometimes it gets quite experimental, but the striking thing is that the director Maria Bruce nekina, if I've got it right, uses the small practical theater space very creatively she begins here in this photo in the tiny lobby where the audience stands among these these narrow tree trunks, and then she moves into the theater. The audience sits for the bulk of the piece and the central figure is here in the foreground and the chorus of young women and girls, and then surprisingly it moves into a second small theater at practical where the audience stands and witnesses the young woman and watches her essentially slip into her grave, and this actress, who you're seeing here and a well known vocalist Olga Vlasova. She gives a mesmerizing performance from start to finish and I have to say this piece really grew on me. I especially appreciated this collision of high brow musical experimentation against the old text from the Russian folk tradition which was in some way what you were talking about Yuri, with the tale of the last angel this collision of old and new. And then one more. All women ensemble, the play called finished the brave Falcon comes from an independent theater project called the SO SO daughters I'm not sure if I'm supposed to pronounce that so so daughters. I wasn't sure. But in many ways, I think it presents an almost opposite view of Russian women. The play is views based on interviews and interrogation transcripts related to young Russian women who are recruited online by ISIS. And we follow the experience of the few different women who attempt to escape to Syria. One of them are they try to marry ISIS fighters they and they get stuck in various nightmare scenarios that are obviously the opposite of the paradise that they were promised online. But I felt the piece was also a commentary on how Russian women feel they're treated by Russian men. It begins with this very lively monologue by a woman complaining about all the way she's been ignored and abused and unsupported by various boyfriends I felt women all over the world would love to see this monologue. But it forces us to ask throughout the rest of the piece what what is it that these women need so desperately for men that they could imagine that they would find it. It's a deadly war zone. Michael, I'm curious how you responded you're the other one who saw it. Yeah, I mean I thought the piece was dope. I thought it was uncompromising in a way that I really admire. And unapologetically political unapologetically feminist, I thought some of the theatrical thing tactics they use like turning the trial transcripts because at least some of the women are tried on return to Russia. Which you know really it's a spying frying pan into fire. Our song is cantatas quite beautifully and are really striking in the contrast between the bleak situation these people are in and the and the and the beauty, the rigorous beauty of the singing. I will also say that the women are not portrayed as victims nor are they essentialized I mean they're really complex and Michael. You're in and out a little bit your connection. I see. Keep going. Keep going. We got you. I'll just say that the characters the women who take this journey are presented in a great deal of complexity, and not sort of portrayed as victims or sort of given really simple motivations which I really appreciate it. Yeah, and they combine roles of victims of the women and the interrogators you know they they take a variety of roles and so you see them in many, many different guises and power power dynamics which is very, very exciting. Well listen, it looks like we have time to sneak in sort of a quick lightning round. I don't know if we'll get through all of it, but I'd like to just hear about a few more shows that only one or two of us watch just to expand the palette here a little bit. Coming back to you is there another production that you found just especially intriguing. I really did love investigation of horror, which is a production that was that was staged directly in a communal apartment in one of the places from 20s and 30s where people, you know, more than one family had to live share apartment. And it was about a group called a barrier in, in, in, in Petersburg of avant-garde artists writers, especially and theater people. And they were just meeting to kind of talk to each other about what interest them in life for that they are what they are inspired by and they talked from everything like daily little practical things to philosophy of living and nature and position of soul or not. And they were all leftists. But what you are facing in that evening, and it's all happening in the apartment basically audience there's probably less people in the audience than the actors in the group. All are having dinner, very poor dinner with, you know, potatoes and tea. And as the evening goes on you are seeing just so slightly and slowly how the environment in which they are living and the fear that the environment is creating a seeping in. Friendship is falling apart and by the end of the evening, you are feeling this desolate desolate emptiness almost people are parting parting almost as enemies by the end of it and you know from the historical situation that a few years later. All these artists were executed. What I loved about it is that the speeds was created by artists young artists from Russia today, and they have inhabited and embodied these characters so persuasively it was painful to watch you know how beautifully imminent. It was and you felt like you are totally in the middle of it. It was also beautifully filmed I think they had at least three or four cameras. And the cameras were like finding little details that were revealing these situations and the ideas and the characters in a beautiful way. Another thing that was really interesting because the group, the original group was very male. This production was cast mostly by women there were some men but it was mostly and there was something about it that it created kind of empathetic sense to it you know kind of embrace. The director basically says that the play is about ideas and thoughts and those are sexless and ageless so anybody can portray these characters. Yeah, it's an example of immersive immersive theater at its best Michael you want to lift up show up. I could talk about spin directed by Yuri. Cut Kofsky, your, our Yuri could be feel free to correct me. And our Yuri is probably better to talk about this but this was a play that was that I saw that was most overtly political and mostly overtly political in terms of being about the present. I found it very exciting. The pieces, ostensibly about a stage in a very small theater, some very elaborate production a very small theater about Russian. I think the term is often used as oligarch, who is who who's losing who's losing his foundation as wealth and his, his power, as I think the state starts to move in on it. And he's portrayed deeply unsympathetically, but you start to build sympathy as you understand that you as an audience are actually part of the system that is surveilling him. So we're seeing, we're seeing intimate intimate scenes of a morning in which in which there's this real sense of danger actually reminds me a little bit. You feel the danger encroaching, even as they're in this very ostentatious situation and wakes up in the morning and he has sex with his wife and then they get ready. And then there's this long breakfast in which people treat each other, both poorly but also lovingly and it's very complicated, beautifully, beautifully enacted scene, and you feel that the encroaching sort of horror of the danger of what's going to happen to him and to them. And, and again they're not idealized in any way it's actually a deeply unsympathetic portrait but you but also a very complex and human once you start to start to empathize and, and then the play sort of suddenly shifts into a very operatic mode that didn't quite work as well for me, but, but I appreciated that it didn't sort of just become sort of interrogation porn or something like that, but really sort of then sort of broke broke up in a very theatrical way. And it was happening to him after the state sort of intervened in his life. It was quite remarkable piece I thought. Yeah, I think there's been so many interesting examples of sort of dystopian drama in the last several years in Europe. I just have to add that the play itself is written by Vladimir Sarotin which is probably the most important contemporary Russian writer and also playwright, and also a very controversial figure politically. Philip we're running. Give us a quick thumbnail of the observers if you would fill up. The object theater. I think that those two puppeteers weren't alive when the when the gulags were going on these are actual artifacts from the gulags. They were led to believe. And they are animated. At least the cups, some of the cups are not because they're in every performance beaten up. There's some wonderful music to it but it's a real meditative look at dark times. Take a coda here in looking at what we've looked at the incredible diversity. There's a number that I always would start off taking an American to Russia about the number of working theaters in Moscow. Yuri. Is it like 1200 is that like it won't give you a number but we're talking hundreds I think there was over 500 at some point six close to 600. And that's the that's the ground that this grows out of this fertile ground of people that are not slung across 3000 miles, but are there in this really dense and and fertile community and boy, the proof in the pudding is what we've been talking about for the last 15 minutes. You know, I, there's so many more shows that we could profile I loved the sun, the Florian Zeller play from the Parisian Paris play right that was given a Russian spin that just like turned it into this kind of gargantuan more abstract Greek tragedy, Yuri, I think you were a big fan of the tale of Igor's campaign. But the list goes on but let's, let's jump ahead I, I, I wish we could talk about all of them but can we come back to just for our last few minutes, some of those big themes and trends that you talked about at the beginning. Some of the things that we that you know that we that we could learn from or even think about as as American artists, Yuri, why don't you start us off again and sort of come back to some of those. The point you made about politics in light of what we've just talked about. It's almost a repetition, but I, but I do think we will mention this notice of, you know, aesthetics as politics, and how, and how, and how at the moment when there is there is a moment of, you know, there is a feeling that after years of mercanness, you know, this regime was playing, you know, multiple hands, we are, we are powerful, but there is a liberal wing. This is this and that happening. It feels like we're living through the moment of crystallization, when the regime is making a choice, right when we're going to the clear totalitarian secret service ruled state. This is happening now, right. You know, the, the, the yesterday, thank Lord, the military forces backed up from the Ukrainian border. We don't know, you know, will they come back in a week or not, right. So the, but there is, there is some, some feeling of crystallization, like evil, evil pronounces itself as evil. And this moment of crystallization, I think is demand for the artist as well. It feels like a lot of, a lot of mercanness is gone. There is a moment of mask. So if we need to choose the side, not only politically, but somewhat aesthetically too, because again, let's remember in Russia, that's the same thing, right. Aesthetics is politics. And this is where I find the works we're seeing this year so articulated much more clear, much more. The, the, the messages are clear or this the form is clear or the pronunciation is clear as well. So that's. Yeah, even, even though to us as Americans, it looks like, you know, these are all very multi-layered works, the messages come through with, with a lot of power in an awful lot of these shows. And that's a change. That's, that's, that's like we like it was going sort of everywhere. People were much less, much less precise for, for a number of years. There is some feeling of now we're getting to some level of clarity. Other, other big, big observations. Anyone just want to follow up on what, what Yuri was saying, because I feel, yes, there is much more clarity and political strength in maybe from what you have seen before, but I still feel that inside of this kind of political force, there is a lot of space for me as an observer, as an audience member, because it's, there is still ambiguity, ambiguity about human existence and we are always looking at individual and times in history, how they are in interaction with each other. And there are, you know, there are questions that are being probed and thrown at me. And that's why I find it so exciting because actually I'm left with something, those questions that haunt me after a production. I find myself in a full answers and telling me I should be thinking this or that or this is right or this is wrong. I'm actually putting myself out there and questioning what I am about who am I, and how I am connecting to these shows. So there is a, there is a dialogue that continues then afterwards for me. I would say a little bit of a response what Yuri said, I think aesthetic is political here too, and whether it's a politics in a lot of what I would say is mainstream theater of acquiescence and subordination, or whether it is on the rare occasion, or hopefully less and less rare occasion of resistance and critique and opposition. You know, I think the United States, American theater is very political and often troubling ways. And the other thing I would say is, you know, American theater tends to be very text based. And I just argue again that like the idiosyncrasy and the power of the vision of the people, whether it was a director whether it was a collective, making the piece, it elevated the text and made the text more powerful it did not diminish the text and I'd love to see more of that, you know, across the board because it's very powerful when it can happen. And there's tremendous pressure put on American artists not to do that very thing. And a lot of our theaters and I think it's it impoverishes our theater. Yeah, the visuals carry so much meaning in the in the Russian theater. If I'm reading you right visuals and also just the power that the powerful choices the actors are making the you know the striking staging scenes whether they're visually powerful or not, they're still have a distinct point of view. Yeah, and that is, I find, I want to see more. Yeah, no, it's intense that I didn't talk about the sun, but the sun was an example of a Western play of Parisian playwright, Florian Zeller but the Russian production does exactly what you're talking about it like it just pulls the lid off of it it amplifies the conflict to almost the painful point where you almost can't watch it but it gives it this sort of tragic lift and asks you to think maybe deeper questions than you would if you were just seeing a psychologically realistic, you know, a sort of typical American style production so Philip do you want to any last point you want to make. Yeah, I want to say that. I think what we've looked at today meets the moment, the moment in Russia and the moment on the planet. I first heard this past weekend, somebody use the term a species wide pandemic, not a global pandemic, but a species wide pandemic. And then I came across a quote from a Rundati Roy writer who said historically pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world and new. This one is no different. It's a portal, a gateway between one world and the next. And I feel that Russia in those six days was giving us a windsock saying yes it's blowing this way. Well, now I want to go hearing all of you talk I want to go back and watch all the productions I missed that and many others. And I want to watch the ones I've already seen another another time but unfortunately they were only online for six days. There was a little bit of reference at the at the after party about them, maybe making them available again so stay tuned. I want to thank everyone who tuned in for joining us and hope others will watch this afterwards you can find more details about the golden mask festival with a list of all the production at golden mask dot are you. We've got to poke through and find the Russian case. And I want to say thank you once again to howl around and to all of you, all our panelists for providing at short notice, very smart, as Phillip said, very smart eyes and ears on this year's historic Russian case festival. Hopefully we'll see one another next spring in Moscow. Thank you all.