 And Barbara, we're live. Good morning, everyone. I'm Barbara Wallace Grossman, professor of theater at Tufts University. And I'll be moderating today's artist conversation about a searing new play by Andre Korea chick called insulted Belarusia translated by John Friedman. I'm delighted to introduce our panelists playwright Andre Korea chick who is zooming in from temporary exile translator John Friedman coming in from Greece. Director Guillermo Cienfuegos, co artistic director of rogue machine theater in Los Angeles coming in from Los Angeles. Director Igor Goliak, artistic director of Arlequin players theater in Boston, coming in from Boston. And I'm also in Boston, speaking to you on land that once belonged to the Massachusetts people, a tribe whose name is now our states. Let's start the conversation. I'd like to, particularly for those of you who may not have had the opportunity to see one of the readings, just give you some context for this play insulted Belarusia is about a revolution that has happened in Belarus. The revolution that happened 100 years ago, or 50 years ago, or 10 years ago, or a year. It's happening now. People are on the streets of Belarus. Now, protesting a profoundly undemocratic election process, an election that should have resulted in the removal from the power of the man who has held it for the past 26 years. President Alexander Lukashenko, who's been called the last dictator in Europe. There was a democratic election in Belarus on in August, and on August 9 2020, 2020, just this past year. Lukashenko refused to accept the election results, declared himself the winner of a landslide victory over his opponents that Lana ticker of sky. And instead of having her as president elect. We have in fact, a contested election, whose results have been called fraudulent, and not free and not fair. Americans took to the streets in protest demonstrating their support for ticker of sky. Lukashenko unleashed brutal, brutal police and security forces to stop and silence them. Eric Koreacic, in addition to being a gifted artist is a member of the opposition movement. And as an artist, he turned to his art to playwriting to the power of language to capture this tumultuous moment, as it is unfolding now. It happened online last night, and there was a protest march on Sunday, protest march on Monday. It's happening now, and into the stories that he's seen and heard stories people have told him about being beaten, captured and jailed. He started writing a play on August 21, and finished it three weeks later in early September, just one month after the contest selection, and then he fled the country because he knew his life was in danger. He immediately sent the play to John Friedman, asking him to translate it and to organize some readings to spread the word about the events in Belarus. And as John has said, he had lined up 10 theaters, six theaters who are willing to do it. Six days later, he finished the translation and sent it to dozens more theaters. As of early November, at least 66 companies in 22 countries are participating in the insulted Belarusia worldwide reading project. The play is currently translated, being translated into 17 languages, with more undoubtedly to come, and publications of the work beginning to happen. The violence continues, Lukashenko is still in power, Tikhanovskaya is still in exile, as is Andrei, and thousands of protesters continue to be arrested, beaten and jailed. At least four have died, I'm sure the number is higher. So with that as context, I'd like to move to our artist conversation, and I'd like to begin if I may, and it's okay if I call you, Andrei. Yes. I'd like to direct this first question to Andrei. How did you feel that you had to write this play? Why theater is a medium? And how did you decide to use only seven characters, none of whom have actual names? I am in playwriting for 20 years, and I had my first theater premiere in Moscow theater, theater which was founded by Stanislavskiy and Nimerovich Danchenko in Moscow, when I was 20 years old. But most of my plays were quite entertaining, and I made a lot of entertaining movies, like a screenwriter, but this year changed everything. On the 9th of August, I think every Belarusian person made his personal choice, or to be on the side of Mr. Lukashenko, who still this election, who tries to stay in power after 26 years of very strict dictatorship, or to try to change, somehow, beautiful country actually, with fantastic people, which was captured by this man. And of course I was on the side of like many artists, many actors, many poets, many writers on the side of people who went to the streets to stop this. And after three weeks, I understood that I should tell something as a writer. It was not easy choice. In that time already was criminal case against Cardination Council, and I'm a member of, with Svetlana Alexeyevich, Nobel Prize winner in literature. I was in village hiding, and I started to write this play. I choose the personalities, we talk about characters, I choose characters which I think is the most important in this revolution. People who influenced to the situation in the most like big way. Of course it's President Lukashenko, of course it's Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, we know now the world knows their names. But as well, there are some people who are not so well known abroad, but very well known inside Belarus because of some events. For example, everybody knows that Lukashenko wants to give his power to his son Nikolai, and Nikolai became the member of character of this play. It's the lady who falsified elections, and she was in charge of commission, electoral commission, and she was the general manager of gymnasium of high school. And she was captured and taped, videotaped and audiotaped, she became very famous in Belarus and she became the character of the play. Of course the policeman who now all the powers of Lukashenko based on the police, on the special forces of police, not all police, but special forces of police, we call him on, of course he became a character. And the lady who give her heart in this revolution, who give her optimism, energy and hope to this revolution, Maria Kalesnikova of course became the prototype of one of the heroes. And as well, we have a guy who died in first, not first, but second day of revolution in the 10th of August, Alexander Traikovsky, and he was killed by two bullets from police guns in his stomach. And all the world saw this, this terrible news. He is well, I think the guys like him, of course, very important in this revolution. So it is persons who are important. And I wanted different points of view, some of them pro-Lukashenko, some of them against Lukashenko, everybody gives his ideas why, why he is supporting or against, and people can choose. But what I wanted, I wanted to show emotional situation in the country, why this revolution became possible. That's how it worked. Thank you so much, Andre. I'd like to stop there and turn it over to John Friedman. John, as its translator, you have really been the vessel of transmission of Andre's powerful words to the world. And I want to ask you, why do you think this play has gone viral so quickly? Why has it captured the world's imagination? What makes it so wrenching? Basically, I believe there's three reasons. One is the quality of the play. It's an extraordinary play. Andre did an amazing job writing a play in the moment, in the minute. It's a very hard thing to do to create a work of art, a lasting work of art about a world that is caving in around you as you work. And he was able to do that. He created a beautiful poetic and terrible and terrifying play that is going to last. It's going to speak to many generations, and it's going to speak to many nations as it already is. That's going to last. The other, another thing is that is the revolution itself. Let's be honest. The world is easily transfixed by politics. And this is a case where we have an incredibly beautiful revolution. It's physically beautiful. You turn it on, you turn on the clips, you turn on the TV and you watch these things with these, these women coming out in white dresses with their white, red, white banners and their scarves and their dress is decorated and the flags painted on their cheeks and red, white, red bouquets that they give to the storm troopers and it's, it's, it's incredibly beautiful to see. And it's incredibly terrifying to see because Andre correct me but I believe they're now are at least 11 people have been killed. And I think it's at least 11 are dead. And we're talking about hundreds and thousands of people tortured people who have suffered lasting damage that they will never get over. And it has been a brutal violent revolution and so this combination of something that's incredibly beautiful to watch it's, it's, it's marvelous for this terrible to say on one hand but it's fortunate on another because it has transfixed people on Facebook and Twitter, and you see these beautiful pictures, you know, people share them, they like them, they, it's, it's, it captures their imagination. And then all of a sudden you realize, you know, you're not talking about some beautiful little thing with with people going around hugging other people, at least you're not all you're talking about. You're also talking about real blood, real death, real danger and real pain. So, you know that and basically the first comment I made about the Andre's writing a play in real time and then writing a lasting play. That would actually be that my third thing that this, this is play has been written so well. It is going to last it's going to be there forever it's it's it will be a national treasure in Belarus, guaranteed 100%. And I just want to add, I'll wrap this up, but before I wrap it up, I want to say that I have had, we have had in Hong Kong, in English, Mandarin, Cantonese, everybody taking part in the Hong Kong readings have written, oh my God, this is about us. We have a theater in Nigeria, who has written this, oh my Lord, this play is about us. I first started reaching out to Americans, Americans were saying, oh my God, Trump, and you know, hanging on to power. This is about us. And they captured something he captured the zeitgeist, we have this problem of dictators in the world right now they're all over the place, and they're all hanging on to power. And he captured something through the Belarusian story, which has as really captured the imagination of people. I think that's beautifully put, and I think we all, particularly those of us in America understand the fragility of any political system, any democracy, and to see people who are trying to claim the Democratic rights that they deserve just being brutalized it's horrifying and galvanizing. I'd like to turn to Guillermo and ask you Guillermo, I know Rogue Machine Theater is a company that specializes in world premieres but you directed the English language premiere of this play. And what, what drew you to it, why did you feel that this was something that your theater had to do, and had to do first, and had to do now. Thank you. Well, I mean, frankly, it didn't feel like a decision, you know, John reached out to Rogue Machine because John's niece is associated with the theater, and she played cheerful in our production of it. And when she brought it to the company, and described that there was this playwright in hiding writing this play about this revolution that I frankly knew nothing about, had heard nothing about, because I'm an American and like most Americans, I only care about what I'm interested in, you know. But when this came about, it seems like there was no choice. You know you mentioned early when you were speaking Barbara the idea of theater that tells historical stories that are, you know, sometimes 100 years ago or 50 years ago, and that this is a play about an event that is currently taking place. Sorry, we just lost you for a few seconds. Am I back now. You're back now. I was just saying that the, the theater is not a medium where you can usually react to current events in any kind of timely fashion, you know. So this was something that was literally happening in this moment and I felt like I felt for myself when I was asked to direct it that, and I looked into what was happening in Belarus and I thought there's, there, this is an opportunity to be of service in some small way there was a group of committed people who are really risking their lives and risking. See, they're putting their real convictions. They're putting up their conviction, you know, their money where their mouth is, and I can't help them in that way. I can't help to, you know, affect the revolution directly but I can do this, I can gather a team of like minded artists and and tell this story to whomever is listening. And, you know, we're in this time now where because of COVID, we can't have theater the way they were accustomed to having it, and it's frustrating, and we've turned to zoom and zoom is really annoying to most of us. But in this situation, it's like a God said that, in a way, the fact that the, that the COVID was happening gave extra wings to the readings of this play, because it allowed them to happen simultaneously. Around the globe, and, and I could watch a reading in in Hong Kong I could, you know, people could watch the Los Angeles reading, we could, my cat in my cast, for instance, three or two of the one of the actors in New York one was in DC one was in Cleveland and one and the restaurant in Los Angeles, and the stage manager was in a, in a motel room in Amarillo, Texas, you know. So that wouldn't have been able to happen. And if we had done a reading we would have done a reading for the people who could gather in a theater so in a way it's it's it seemed like there was no choice to be made here I felt like it felt like a fellow human being and particularly a fellow theater person was in need, they were, you know, and, and asking if we could help tell this story and so there was just no question that we were going to do that, and it's an honor that we got to be the that we got to premiere the English language translation. And then we got to do it again, you know, two months later, and just to wrap up the idea that you were suggesting about parallels, you know, political parallels all over the world and in our country, obviously we recognize these parallels when we were doing the reading two months ago. We knew that there was a possibility that in our country some of these same questions would come up. But here we are approaching the play again, a couple months later, and in the play, you know, the play hasn't changed, but there's the word somebody jump out like he won't succeed. And let's let's count, you know, we got to count everything and let the count is rigged and it's, it's, I can really relate to the idea that this play whatever, whatever constraints Andre was under. He caught lightning in a bottle, he caught something that speaks so directly to us as humans that I'm not surprised at all that people from all over the world think it's a story about about them because it is, it's a story about all of us. Absolutely. beautifully said Guillermo thank you and I mean certainly we have documentary theater as a genre, you know the Laramie project about the murder of Matthew Shepherd but what you said about this is happening now the white, hot intensity, with which you've written it Andre, the sense of urgency that just leaps off the page and grabs you by the heart. I mean, it really it's got wrenching. So I want to actually turn to Igor because Igor I know Arlican has mounted stage readings in English but you've actually directed the first production in Russian. I want to ask you about the experience of doing that and if you see a difference in the response of Russian speaking audience members, as opposed to English speaking audience members, or is, well, I'll just stop there, do you notice a difference and what's been your experience working with the play in Russian as well as in English. Yeah, I think thank you very much for for the question. I think it's really interesting that part of part of our audience is a Russian speaking probably bigger part probably around 60%. We do productions in both Russian and English. And it's so interesting that the response has been so so so different, because the Russian speaking audience that we that we have, you know, came from the Soviet Union, and it really hits close to it. You know, it's a two sided coin on one side. On one side, it's people that are ready to understand and try to kind of live in the moment and the other side of the coin is people that don't want to hear anything about what's happening over there. They want to close off and never even hear about the existence of whatever they left, because they were so hurt by whatever they emigrated from. And, you know, there's so the two sides of the coin one is very aggressive anti Soviet, it's really kind of like a Soviet regime, and the other side of people I don't want to hear about it it hurts too much. So that has been really, really interesting the response. The response of the English speaking audience has been great has been. Oh, so this is not a part of Russia is this is this somewhere in Siberia. Almost. It's a little bit, it's a little bit further, I would say, from them. But, you know, I think they're also very, very open to to learning about what's happening. You know, experiencing this through both lenses seems extremely interesting and then when they intermix. When the Russians come to the English speaking production. The experience of listening to this production is quite different and the talk back. It's interesting. It's, there's a lot of kind of inner conflict, especially with the immigrants and and immigrants are feeling on one hand understood. Because this is what they left. This is what they ran away from. And on the other hand, on the other hand, feeling seen. Another thing that I want to mention is what fascinated me about this plane, why responded so quickly is that what I've been thinking about is the idea of where's the, where's the threshold to which we as human beings need to respond to what's happening on the other side of the earth. We can't respond to everything, otherwise we go crazy right. But what is a what is a person that what is a human being in the larger sense of the word, what would we have to respond to. And it's a question that I've been living with for for a while. And you know it's a question that started with the historical aspect of Holocaust, you know, which baffles me as how, how is it, how is it, how is it possible that other countries didn't respond like the United States, right. How's, how's it, how's it possible. And we are now, I'm not comparing but I feel like there is a responsibility, there's a human responsibility to respond and not to shy away from it. And that's what really drove me to this play not really the artistic side. It's the, it's the human side that because the artistry is very limited on zoom. It's, it's what exactly what Guillermo said, it's being able to respond because of this pandemic so so quickly. And responding and and trying to help with with what we can. Thank you for that Igor. I, I know this is a point where I'm supposed to ask Guillermo and Igor to show a clip but I just given the question that you just posed maybe I'll take this opportunity to just open it to the group for the moment and then we'll come back to the clips. What, what is, I mean, you're doing your responsibility as artists and theater people were doing readings, but ultimately what, what is the hope, what can we hope that these readings will lead to. What, I mean I guess it's what is the power of theater ultimately. What can it affect. How do you envision the outcome of this worldwide reading project on a man who's clung to power for 26 years. People are already rioting in the streets what what else can we do what should we do what can theater do. And that's open to all of you. Yeah, yeah, I will start because I have this question in my head every day, you know, during my writing was closed and demolished the National Theater and Minsk. I just fired the whole artistic crew, including directors, artists, everybody. Today, for example, just today, this news very, very hot 15 actors from new drama theater and Minsk were fired from the theater. It's the main artistic crew. More than 20 artists were fired from Grodno State Theater because of their position. So, what was it in my head. I understand that 26 years we were like in the stone, you know, in a cage we had no communications with the world really communications I mean, real communications where we had this iron curtain, which look at you did for everybody in Belarus. So, my idea was to show actors, artists, intelligent people in Belarus that they're not alone that actors all over the world. We'll read the play about Belarus about the struggle about the protest. And it means that they will discuss it. They will bring this information to their theater audiences. And so it means that people all over the world will think about the problems of Belarus. And send their, I think, greetings, their love, their good emotions, their support. It's very important, I think, because when you struggle alone, you actually, you don't have the hope. If you feel that you are in the kind of network of artistic people in the world, it gives you a different kind of strength in this situation. It gives you hope. So, I think it's very important to show solidarity with artistic people all over the world. It means, if the problems like these in other countries, for example, I know about like suppression in China or in some other totalitarian countries, we already should somehow support them, even if we are 10,000 kilometers from China. Because actually, the art is absolutely borderless. Theatre is, don't have borders. And it's so important that what was in my head. I love the way you put that. I mean, we talk about doctors without borders, but the idea that art is, art is borderless. Theatre is borderless, and that it's a source of hope. And it's really profound. Does anybody else want to add to that, or should we go to the clips now? Would that be? I would just, I would like to add just to underline what Andre said is that in these, you know, authoritarians depend on doing what they do in secret. They control, they try to control the images and control, the first thing they do is take control of media, and in this case, the theaters. And in our way, we're doing what you often hear people chant in protest when they say the whole world is watching, you know, it's a lot harder to get away with things when everybody's got their eyes on you. So this is just an attempt that hopefully more and more eyes will be on what's happening there. Absolutely. And I know Igor, you had actually one of the Belarusian actors join you as a cast member in one of the readings live for Minsk. Could you just tell us about that? Yeah, it was an idea that the idea that what everyone is talking about that this is happening now and this is real. This isn't as real as it gets. And almost when we perform this play, there was a sense, can we perform it? Like, is it a performative structure of something that's being uncovered right now and with real people dying? Can we pretend to be them? It's a difficult question for me. So in thinking about that question, I asked Andrei to help me find an actor in Minsk that would perform the role of the corpse. And Andrei suggested Alice Malchanov. And he was unbelievable. We met a couple of times with him. And I asked him, and when we perform it, it's eight o'clock here, it's three o'clock, I think three three a.m. In Minsk. And I asked him, you know, can you walk outside? Can you say these lines and walk on the streets of Minsk? He said, no, I can't. It's three a.m. at three thirty a.m. doing this, it's difficult. I said, can you go? I said, fine. What about your balcony? And he said, yes. And he went to his balcony. And as soon as he gets to his balcony, it's balcony with windows, actually, windowed balcony. And I see the white red white flag hanging on the balcony. So there is no better set design. It's pre-designed. And and he and I said, did you just hang this? No, no, it's been hanging here for all this time. Is it dangerous to hang? Maybe, I don't know, but that's here. What play? What player? There's no play. And and then when when he when he at one point, he says his lines. And he opens the window opens the window to the balcony and says, this city is mine. And I will not give it away and we see Minsk, the lights of Minsk, we see this flag that was there that was not pre-made that was not pre, you know, for theater site specific. It's incredibly powerful and just for people who again may not know the play. When Igor refers to the actor playing the corpse, the characters in the play do not have names. Although two of them, they're based on real people, but the characters are called Oldster, novice, mentor, corpse, cheerful, avian, and youth. And maybe that's a good time to ask you, Andre, why you opted for almost emblematic names made me think of the morality play every man. Is this a morality player? Well, it's difficult because of course, I didn't take one person only one person as a prototype. Some characters are combined in their stories. For example, I took the real stories, which happened in our jail in prison, when people were tortured, and give this real stories to the mouse of two personages to the cheerful and to the corpse. But it's real stories. And as well, I made some connections between the personages during the play, which to show that Belarus is very small country, and actually everybody is quite connected. And you can find connection through the one person to almost everybody, I mean, one or two persons. So that's, and because I didn't take like all the truth but has some like 20 or 30% of imaginary situations to connect people. I decided not to give the real names. It will be not fair to the people because I put some more information that than only this personage has. And another thing I think that it's universal play as Jonathan said, and these kind of personages can be found in many countries, in different way but but in many countries. Even in the United States when President says, I don't believe in in this results. I have my own results I win. That what Lukashenko said, I win. Even when people show him numbers. And he said, no, I win, and I will keep this power, and I want to stay in power and you don't understand. And you are not good people. It's much a good stuff for you but you try to fire me it's no it will not work. I will stay. So it's psychological stuff which is quite common in many, many countries and situations, common for many countries. That's why, as Johnson said, it worked in in Hong Kong, in Nigeria, in Romania when they remember times in Poland when they remember times of Lech Walensa and Adam Michnik and the solidarity times. So, and in Russia, of course in Russia because they have the same situation actually in Russia. And I believe that in few years they will have the same protests as well against Putin. So everybody feels that there is something common in his country with this play. And I think that's why I didn't take names. Thank you very much. I think at this point it would be really helpful to see the clips that you prepared. I'd like to begin with Igor, if you could just set us up for the clip from Arlekin and then Guillermo from Road Machine and I understand that they both involved the same character but seen at different points in the reading. So, Igor, I'll turn it over to you. Thank you. Yeah, we were asked to come up with a clip that was really meaningful to us. And when Guillermo shared his clip. It was exactly the same clip that I was going to take. And so I decided in collaboration with Guillermo, I decided to pick a clip from the early stages from the early part of the of the play with the same character and maybe when Guillermo shows his clip it's we will see the journey of this character, the arc of this character. The character's name is Mentor and she's the infamous person that was heading the election commission at a school. And she's the one that was actually recorded you can find this audio, there may be video I'm not sure but there's definitely audio on YouTube. There's audio on audio on YouTube where she says okay, these are the numbers and this is what we're going to have. And so this is the character that we get to see in Andrey's play and this is this is one of her first monologues in the beginning. This is a clip that was posted on the Internet in the recording of our rehearsals. Look at her eyes. Svetlana Viktorovna, you? Katya Rynna, your hands. Kassatonov. Kassatonov, are you kidding me? This is a state secret. You were supposed to put the state interest, but it turned out to be trust. Trust. You just look at what people are writing, right here on YouTube. And Udy, we're going to put you down, falsifiers. Here's a 20-year-old falsifier. And here are falsifiers. You're breaking the law. I have four years left until retirement. I'm from the director's chair, I'm not going anywhere. And the president is right that he doesn't leave. You have to keep your place until the end, but then the blood is earned. All this nonsense, it's all nonsense. It means to write down the numbers that I gave to the protocol, hang on the door and let it be pressed. And he will destroy you all. Thank you, Igor. Do you want to say anything else about it or should we go right to Guillermo, to Guillermo's clip? Let's go to Guillermo's clip and then we can talk about this character. Sounds good. Yeah, yeah, let's see. It's the same character, it's mentor. It's later in the story, however. Prostitutes, drug addicts, sheep, cannon fodder. You'll be on your knees yet begging me to come back. How could they trade me for that, that dumb cloth, that housewife, a woman? That pathetic thing. If that's how it is, I'll die. But I still won't go. If I do go, I'll take as much and as many with me as I can. You don't want Sasha, you'll get Putin. I don't want your pension and I don't want your job. Take back my diplomas and your stability and your flower gardens. Take it all back. Just give me my daughter, Alina. She has a weak heart. She has asthma. Give her back and my nephew Nikita. My sister has hypertension. She won't survive and I won't survive if she. Give them back. Give back our children. Beautiful. Yeah, the. It's, it's, it's, I feel so good to, to have learned just now that, that we both chose the same thing. We also included a little bit of, of oldster there, but the, for me anyway, the thing that really struck me about that final pieces. And struck me about the play, especially the second time. By the way, that the, the, the actor, the actress playing mentor and that clip you just saw in English is in Caroline clay. All the characters in this play. Are true believers. They're like, they, they, they're, they, they're true believers in whatever it is they're hanging on, whether it's positive or negative or negative, you know, whether it's cheerful, who is, who believes that the power of love and good can overcome or, or, or, uh, uh, look at Shenko who can believe that, that he has God given right to be the leader, you know, to be the president that he has is entitled to it. But mentor is the most, uh, poignant one for me almost because she starts the play as a true, truly believing that, that the system will take care of her. If she does what she's told, if she supports the president, she'll get her pension, she'll get her bonus. She, she, she buys into the whole program. She buys into all of it. She believes he put a sputnik in space. She believes he scared away the coronavirus as long as the system will not let her down. And then as the play goes on, her belief, like the beliefs of so many of the characters in the play, if not all of them, get really seriously tested, if not destroyed. And in hers, um, she's being asked to, to, uh, still hold on to these things. And at the end it's so poignant when she says, take it all, take my pension, take everything I believe in, just give me my child back. Um, that's what that's one of the ways that, uh, the universality of the play is so strong because that's a, you know, it steps away from being some kind of political, a polemic story. It's a, it's a, you know, it's the, it's the man in front of the tanks and in China, or it's, you know, it's, it's a woman just crying out for her child. Um, the belief systems, you know, the, you know, the things they really believe get, it's easy to have a conviction, uh, when it's not tested, when it's not, when it's not, there's no danger in holding on to it. Um, but when, you know, Tikhanovskaya is, is asked to run for president, it's easy to have that conviction that she should fight for justice until she's in a room with KGB people. And, you know, to, to continue to hold on to it is that's where we see the courage. So I'm rambling a little, but just the idea, I'm sure Igor is, is, is eager to talk about it as well. Well, thank you for your comments. And I mean, to see the impact, the person, impact of the trauma on the personal, on the family. I mean, she talks about her daughter, Alina. We never see Alina as a character. We can only imagine Alina's fate. Is she raped? Is she killed? I mean, certainly nothing good. She mentions Nikita and Nikita is actually the name of the character called corpse, her nephew. So we know his fate. So it's, it's really, again, it kind of reinforces what you said, Andre, about how small this country is, the ties that bind people and that, that really tear people apart. I was interested to see, and the other actress, by the way, Carolyn Clay in a road machine and Arlican, Daria, Denisova, both incredibly talented performers. I was interested to see that the Arlican reading is in black and white and the road machine in color. What, was there any reason why you chose one over the other? Either Guillermo, Igor? Yeah, I just want to mention something about the clip. What, what, what really interests me in this character is, it's an internal tragedy where she's not beat, she's not beaten up, but her life's conviction is completely broken at the end, you know, towards the end of one's life where one is living in one direction and fully, with full belief, and I can see this in Russia and John can probably attest to this with full belief in the current state and the current government and completely being broken towards the end. And I'm thinking that I have relatives in Russia that will, that will experience this, I think. And this, this internal tragedy that happens to her is something that's, that was very meaningful. And the other thing that I'm, that I'm just wondering, and maybe this is, friends, help me out on this. I'm trying to understand when we talk about it being universal, do we diminish the meaning of this play? This is a question that I just had in my, we keep saying, yes, it's universal. And I understand that yes, it's universal and that's a positive, but is it a negative, like that we address this play as being universal that we say, no, it's about everything, but being about everything, it's about, it's not, we're forgetting about the issue at hand. Well, that's where, that's where the quality of the writing comes in for me, because this play is written so well that this play works on all kinds of levels. Of course it works on an international level. It works on a universal level. But as we're talking right now about one of the most important characters in the play, and she is one of the most important, because her art is the, is the longest, the deepest and the most tragic of all of the characters. Even including corpse who dies, but when he basically set himself up for that. So it's not his, his death is not as tragic as the loss of her entire life. And, you know, as you talked about her whole system beliefs just absolutely falls down all around her and crashes into nothing. Then this play has that specifics, has that very specific, and it's a very specific Slavic, of course, very specific Belarusian story. The people actually, if you know Belarus, which I really don't, I lived in Russia for 30 years. I only know Belarus by way of Russia, but knowing Russia very well, I know that this is a very specific picture of Belarusians. But it works, you know, it works on so many levels. And that is the answer to your question at some point, because it works 100% as a play specifically about Belarus, specifically the revolution going on right now, and these people. And yet when it's extracted from that situation, all of a sudden it begins to fill up with other meanings that other people bring to it. And I just have to add, because I forgot to mention it, I'm talking to a guy in Chile right now about doing it in Chile. And he wrote back to me a long, long letter and he says, I have heard nothing about the Belarusian Revolution. But he says it sounds like the one we're going through right now. He said he also is in exile in Mexico. And he said that in Chile right now, there's this huge revolution going on with the uprising of the populace, the government beating them down. And, you know, it's astonishing the, once again, I come back to the universality of the play. It is fitting what is happening all around the world. And yet you, as a Russian emigrate, you know perfectly well that these characters that Andre has written, they are really, really specific. And you know them, you can walk out on the street somewhere in Minsk and you can see them, you know. So that's how the reason is the quality of the play. That's the answer to your question. And I think you're right though, Igor, is the idea is that maybe it's the use of the word universal throws it off a little bit. We're really talking about it. The impact is definitely universal. But maybe we're talking about the idea that the character is so relatable that we're able to empathize with them in such a personal way. And I think that's to the point of what you're saying, Igor, I think is it's less about it being universal and bland so that it applies to everything, but that it's so personal that we relate to it. We relate to it in that specific way. Thank you. Thank you, friends. And not to get overly generic, but I mean, that's really the hallmark of any great work of art that it works in its particular specificity, but it also speaks to larger issues. It resonates with many more people who can empathize, who can understand, even if they're not living it in the moment, the way you are Andre and you're the, all the people in Belarus right now. I had questions, but I feel that we've already covered them. The one question was, what is it about at this play that's resonating with people around the world? Did that on. I also was going to ask you if the pandemic had an impact on the plane, its transmission, but you've already addressed that. And, you know, to how blessed we are, even though zoom has its limitations to be able to talk from Greece from where you are in exile from, I mean, it's just, it's kind of remarkable from California. So we did that question. So in the time remaining, which is only five minutes, I'd like to ask if, if any of you have something to add to this conversation that we haven't yet said any point that you really want to make. And then I'd like the last word to be Andre's before we sign off. So I would, I would like to say something quick, which should lead into something for Andre. And that is, you know, we've talked about the huge scope of this, of this project as turned out. We are now nearing the 100th event of this, accounting translations and publications and readings and films and radio programs and videos. And all of the responses that people have come up with, we are, we are nearing the 100th event of the project in two months. And it has people scheduled doing things at least until January and I expect it to go on. And so we talk about it as a project. It's as far as incredibly wonderful, fabulous thing. In fact, I would like to see this project fall apart at some time soon because I would like to see Alexander Lukashenko go just as I hope Trump leaves soon. I hope Lukashenko goes soon. And I fear, I fear we are in for a long, hard pull with Alexander Lukashenko. And so I am very personally, as somebody that's very involved in this project, I want to see the project. I want the project to be as tenacious as Lukashenko. I think that is my goal at this moment, at which point Andre, if you want to, if you want to pick up on that, I'm sure you have something about that to say. First, I would like to say actually thank you and express my appreciation to people who devoted their time, who put their emotions, who made these fantastic readings all over the world. You are right. It's a lot of events and some people just come, have no knowledge about the situation. Somehow become very active and go further, further, further. So my appreciation is fantastic and especially to you Jonathan, because actually it started from you. You were the first energetic point of this project. Yes, the problem is that our revolution is very peaceful. If we took armory and go and tried to kill this bad Lukashenko, maybe it goes like in other African or other countries, but it's not the way we want this revolution to happen. We don't want to kill anybody, to beat anybody, to crush the cars or shops. It's very peaceful. And of course when you are very peacefully, have this peaceful protest, you have other side with guns and these machines and these water pumps and everything. And they are very cruel and they put people in prison and beat them and then sent them to jail for like half a month, month and so on. You never know when it finished and how it finished. I really hope this revolution will stay peaceful. I really don't want any civil war in very nice country, which I love and I really think it's one of the best countries in Europe actually for me. But what I think this revolution should be a revolution of love and solidarity. And our project helps us to understand that we are, can change everything if we are in solidarity and help each other. That it is about actually for me, this project and this revolution and this play and our discussion and everything. It's about solidarity of good people. Thank you very much. Thank you so much, Andre. And on that really positive and hopeful note, I'd like to say thank you to our panelists. Thank you to howl round. Thank you to Arlequin players theater, rogue machine theater, broadband collaborative, the cherry orchard festival. Thanks to all of you for making this program possible. And most of all, thank you to you Andre for your courage, for your creativity and your commitment to social justice and to solidarity. Thank you so much.