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The Last of the Soviets

Four stars

Two newsreaders sit behind a desk while a dramatic theme music plays out. Scripts are wielded like weapons by the man and woman as they prepare to dole out the headlines to anyone still seeking some kind of truth beyond fake news. Initially strait-laced - and straight-faced - in their delivery, the veneer of democracy soon starts to fade, however, as a litany of atrocities takes in the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, the 1980s Soviet-Afghan conflict, and a whole lot more, as any pretence at an objective worldview is consumed into the chaos the pair collapse into.

 

The foodstuffs that fill the desk are used as props for little miniature scenarios projected live onto a screen at the side of the stage. While caviar and vodka are passed out like holy sacraments, toy tanks are abandoned on the woman’s hair, while tiny figurines are burnt like tin soldiers.

 

This is quietly ferocious stuff in Petr Boháč’s production for the Czech Republic based Spitfire Company, which draws its words from the work of Ukrainian born Belarusian Nobel Prize laureate investigative journalist, essayist and oral historian Svetlana Alexievich. Alexievich has written extensively about Soviet and post Soviet history based on personal testimonies of those who lived through the assorted turmoil.

 

This is brought to life with deadly intent by Inga Mikshina-Zotova and Roman Mikshin-Zotov - Russian actors currently exiled in Prague - in a production dedicated to Palina Sharenda-Panasiuk, a Belarusian political prisoner and activist for the European Belarus Civil Campaign. The theatrical magic conjured from such ongoing realpolitik may make for a troubling hour, but is history in the making.

 

Zoo Playground until 27th August (not 21st), 5.45pm.


The List, August 2023

 

Ends

 

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