Mayfest is upon us once again, Bristolians, so last night I hotfooted
it over to the Tobacco Factory, where the Belarus Free Theatre are putting on
Minsk 2011: A Reply To Kathy Acker.
The performance, directed by Vladimir Shcherban, runs until Saturday,
May 26, and is presented in Russian with English subtitles. Think that’s
intimidating? That’s the least of your worries...
"Right rib, left rib, sternum and the rest of the ribs. In 1996, at a ralley on Chernobyl Way, I was seized by riot policemen and brought to the KGB inner courtyard. I spent three hours being stretched wide open against the wall.
"Scars adorn a man. Many girls find it sexy. In this regard, Minsk is a beautiful and very sexy city. Welcome to Minsk! The sexiest city in the world!"
Dzenis Tarasenka, member of Belarus Free Theatre
Strip clubs, underground raves and gay pride parades pulse beneath the
surface of a city where sexuality is twisted by oppression. If scars are sexy,
then Minsk must be the sexiest city in the world. Minsk 2011 is billed as a response to American artist
Kathy Acker’s piece about sexuality in New York, NYC 1979. However, Minsk 2011
takes a more twisted slant on this, highlighting the brutal repression of
personal and sexual expression in Belarus.
Performed by a nine-strong cast, Minsk 2011 is the angriest piece of
theatre I’ve ever seen. Many of the cast have served time in prison, gone into
hiding or been exiled… largely for nothing worse than attending a protest
(Natalia Kaliada, Nicolai Khalezin, Svetlana Sugako, Yana Rusakevich), and many
have lost their jobs or been heavily fined simply for being a part of the
Belarus Free Theatre.
It is the knowledge that the stories are performed by people who have
experienced the hell they describe that makes Minsk 2011 all the more chilling
and compelling. Because while this is a blunt and aggressive performance, Minsk
2011 is also an important piece of political theatre, sharing the grim reality
of life under Europe’s last dictatorship to the privileged UK. For many people,
Minsk means nothing more than the remote-sounding city where Phoebe’s scientist
boyfriend moves to in Friends.
The audience is confronted by aural aggravation (distorted feedback,
human screaming, glass clanking, endless thumping)… and by uncomfortable visual
spectacles (violence, degradation, a woman stripped naked and painted entirely
in black ink before her shape is printed on paper). Perhaps the most
heart-breaking scenes are the ones where the female cast members simulate lap
dances for a male actor, under the desperate illusion that what they are doing
is art and will fund their lives. Couple this with the story of a woman,
inexperienced with men and consumed with self-hatred, who invites strange men
into her home, where she strips and dance for them in the belief she will be
respected. Together, they form the most soul-destroying images of women forced
to sell their bodies in order to exist and feel like they are worth having
faith in.
This belief becomes even sharper towards the end of the performance,
when we hear that mayor Mikalai Ladutska decreed in February of this year that
42 sex workers who were serving time in Minsk prison be released during the
harshest, coldest winter to clean the impacted snow from the streets. Ladutska
joked that the sex workers were making the streets a nicer place for themselves
to work on when they were released from prison.
While Minsk 2011 is a grim and often confrontational piece, it is also
extremely well done: well performed, well devised, well directed and a piece of
political theatre that is well worth seeing. Not least to broaden your own
knowledge of what is going on in Belarus.
Please click here for more information. Minsk 2011 is also touring the
UK, so even if you’re not in Bristol, please check to see if it is coming to
your city.
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