"Slavs!" Topples Communism in Style

SLAVS!
LOCATION: Loeb Drama Center Mainstage
DATES: Nov. 11 – Nov. 19
DIRECTOR: Aoife E Spillane-Hinks ’06
PRODUCER: Julia E.B. Morton ’07, Kimberley C. Weber ’07, and Zoe M. Savitsky ’07

It is 1985, and the world is changing. The old giants of the USSR are toppling , and no one knows whether to pray to the saint or Lenin, or simply to despair.

“Slavs!”, written by Tony Kushner (“Angels in America”) and directed by Aoife E. Spillane-Hinks ’06, literalizes this conundrum. The actors portraying the ancient “giants” of the Party wear stilts to tower over others, and one topples over the dead. One character prays for vodka from a religious icon with Lenin’s face pasted over the saint’s—and her prayers are answered. In vignettes such as these, the play paints a picture of Russia during the collapse of Communism that is fascinating and frustrating.

The play is comprised of three parts. In the first, the old primary communist leaders debate the future of Russia and the world while waiting for a speech to take place. In the second, a bureaucrat attempts to seduce Kat (Catrin M. Lloyd Bollard ’08), the guard at a bizarre storage facility for brains of important Party members, as they discuss the future of Russia and the world. He is rebuffed when her female lover, B (E.A. “Zia” Okocha ’08), shows up. The couple discusses sex, vodka and the future of Russia and the world.

In the last section, B, who is a doctor, treats children in Siberia who have been affected by radioactive waste. She and Yegor Tremens Rodent (Arlo D. Hill ’08), a government functionary, discuss the future of Russia and the world. The scene shifts to heaven, where the little girl (Claire Dickson) treated by B meets two old party leaders who died in the first part. No credit for guessing what they discuss.

This is not to say that the play is dull. If one accepts that the play is much more about ideas and situations than it is about plot or character development, it is possible to be completely swept up in the current of words, ideas, and images that comprise “Slavs!”

And what a current it is. The staff, including professional set designer Todd Weekley and costume designers Casey M. Lurtz ’07 and Jane H. Van Cleef ’06, successfully creates a sense of a state somewhere between waking and dreaming, to match the delirious flow of words and ideas throughout the piece.

The sense of skewed reality pervades the design of the play. We are confronted throughout by a giant portrait of Lenin painted on a broken wall, gazing down disapprovingly. His stern demeanor is broken, however, by jars (the brain-containing type) placed in alcoves cut out of the wall close to the ground and later, more strikingly, by backlit X-rays of people harmed by radiation, which shine out from Lenin’s formerly implacable face. Adding to the alternate-reality effect is the use of stilts for the party leaders and fat suits (and in one case, a costume ballooned to ridiculous proportions) for old babushkas.

The cast succeeds in interpreting the strange momentum of the play, blending the mundane, the theatrical and the fantastic without ever losing any element. Particularly impressive is Lloyd-Bollard as Kat, who simultaneously conveys cruelty, humor, sexiness, and vulnerability with great energy and aplomb, making the second scene the highlight of the play.

Similarly notable is Hill as Yegor, whose twitches and stutters bring a bit of levity to the deathly-depressing subject matter of the last scene, but whose incompetence ultimately becomes somewhat sinister.

“Slavs!” is a dense and challenging play, but it is a rewarding one if viewers are willing to engage in its provocative themes—an easier task than one might assume. After all, it might be verbose, but it also still offers people on stilts and brains in jars.