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Steven Boyer and Adam Chanler-Berat in Mother Russia. Photo: HanJie Chow<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re used to having history served up dry and factual, consider another alternative, now offered at Signature Theatre. Lauren Yee\u2019s Mother Russia, an utterly \u201cbonkers\u201d version of post-Soviet history, is not only the funniest new play in New York this season, but possibly the most insightful political satire in decades.<\/p>\n
The year is 1992: Gorbachev is out, Yeltsin is in. The KGB is floundering and the streets of St Petersburg (where the play takes place) are chaotic. Two friends, Dmitri (Steven Boyer) and Evgeny (Adam Chanler-Berat), decide to team up and test out capitalism in this moment of change (Dmitri\u2019s dream has always been to join the KGB and Evgeni wants to prove his worth to his father, a rich Russian mobster). Dmitri has turned his newly open shop (which purports to sell everything from raw chicken to Latvian condoms) into a front for a surveillance enterprise set up with stolen equipment from an abandoned KGB office, and Evgeny convinces his old friend to hire him. Their target: Katya, a famous Russian pop singer (Rebecca Naomi Jones) with whom Evgeny has fallen in love. At the same time, they\u2019re collecting government vouchers with which they hope to invest in the new economy.<\/p>\n
Dmitri and Evgeni (reminiscent of SNL\u2019s \u201cwild and crazy guys\u201d) become a two-member gang that can\u2019t shoot straight, as they concoct a scheme to steal a large stash of vouchers from Evgeny\u2019s father. One of my favorite moments occurs when they split a \u201cfilet-o-fish\u201d from the newly opened McDonalds, licking their fingers with ecstasy over both the fish and the newly arrived emblem of capitalism. Eventually Katya joins them as the scheme crescendos to a violent shoot-out (no spoilers . . . but then again nothing could spoil the fun of this outrageous plot).<\/p>\n
The narrator of this absurdist caper is a fourth character named Mother Russia (played with relish by David Turner). She appears in a violent red costume (designed by Sophia Choi) at the top of the play and between each scene, as the action segues back and forth from Dmitri\u2019s trashy shop to the bus where Evgeni meets Katya to of Evgeni\u2019s father\u2019s mansion (the set, designed by dots, nests most of the locations inside the shell of Dmitri\u2019s shop with a clever use of painted backdrops). At first, she offers random (outrageous) comments (in a heavy Russian accent laced with American slang) on everything from buying furniture in 1992 to the Moscow Art Theatre\u2019s leading lady Olga Knipper, Anton Chekhov\u2019s wife. \u201cThere is not enough of me in this play,\u201d she complains at one point. \u201cHave you noticed this? Right?\u201d<\/p>\n
About halfway through this ninety-minute romp, Mother Russia delivers one of the most memorable monologues I\u2019ve heard on any stage this year\u2014hilarious and insightful\u2014offering the history of Russia \u201cbeginning with the year 7. First there was a war. And then another war. And then a king. And then a tsar. Ivan the Terrible \u2014he was not so bad\u2014then there was Dmitri. Boris. Feodor. False Dmitri. False Dmitri 2.\u201d On and on she goes through two thousand years of Russian history in five minutes, as her speech grows increasingly outrageous, including references to the Beatles, The Godfather characters (specifically Luca Brasi and Moe Green), and ending with Alexi Navalny.<\/p>\n
Director Teddy Bergman navigates this caper swiftly and skillfully, intensifying its entertainment value and absurdity, surprising us with each appearance of Mother Russia, who pops up on the roof of the set, in the audience, etc. Other treats include music from the great Russian tradition (Swan Lake in particular) and a dance performed by the ensemble. Above it all, on the roof of the shop, there\u2019s a sign saying (in Russian, of course):\u00a0 \u201cThe best part of waking up is Folger\u2019s in your cup!\u201d<\/p>\n
Amidst all this hilarity, one line, said by Mother Russia at the beginning and echoed at the end, summarizes the searing, serious historical insight offered by Yee, a Signature resident playwright who turns out to be one of the sharpest minds of her generation. \u201cI have been let down by so many shitty men,\u201d says Mother Russia at the play\u2019s introduction, referring to Russia\u2019s entire history, which she will summarize later in the play. She repeats that sentiment again in the final scene, when she is approached by Evgeny, another \u201cshitty man\u201d now dressed as a businessman, offering her \u201cRussia, in your name . . . what you\u2019ve always wanted.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve heard this song before,\u201d Mother Russia replies, \u201cbut on the other hand, good parts are so hard to come by these days.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Steven Boyer and Adam Chanler-Berat in Mother Russia. Photo: HanJie Chow If you\u2019re used to having history served…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":148910,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9,56,63,65,64],"class_list":{"0":"post-148909","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-ny","10":"tag-nyc","11":"tag-nyc-headlines","12":"tag-nyc-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148909"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148909\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/148910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}