Directed by Nicolai Khalezin and Natalia Kaliada. Set and Costume Designer: Nicolai Khalezin Filmmaker, Animator & Video Designer: Roman Liubyi Lighting & Projection Designer: Richard Williamson Associate Lighting & Projection Designer: Beatrice Banyionite Original Music and Live Performance by Mark & Marichka Marczyk of Balaklava Blues Choreographer: Maryia Sazonova Videographer: Mikalai Kuprych. Ensemble: Pavel Haradnitski Yuliya Shauchuk Raman Shytsko Maryia Sazonova StanislavaShablinskaya Ilya Yasinski Kate Vostrikova Igor Shugaleev Kiryl Kalbasnikau Darya Andreyanava The Dunstan Playhouse. Adelaide Festival Centre. Adelaide Festival. March 2 – 6 2023
Reviewed by Peter
Wilkins
The final image of Belarus Free
Theatre’s chilling production of Dogs of
Europe is Orwellian in its prophetic impact. Members of the company form a
burning ring of fire. In their hands each holds a blazing book while flames devour
the image on the large screen at the back of the stage. One by one each book is shut extinguishing the flame and plunging
the stage into darkness. The inevitable destruction of freedom of thought and
speech is complete. Novelist Alhierd Bacharevic’s warning appears projected
through the darkness, Where once the
books burned; in time the people will burn,
London based Belarus Free Theatre,
forced into political exile by the oppressive and Russian complicit Belarus
regime, has adapted Bacharevic’s dystopian view of a world where war has
divided the globe into the oppressive New Reich and the libertarian League of
European nations. It is the prescient nature of Bacharevic’s grim view of a
future event that is so frightful today. The allusion to Putin’s invasion of
Ukraine and the ensuing battle between forced occupation and expansion and
sovereign freedom is inescapable.
Director Nicolai Khalezin’s production presents an epic staging of the chapters of Bacharevic’s novel from the creation of the breakaway state to the battle for supremacy and the eventual search for the identity of a lost past. The first half follows the life of fifteen year old Michuan caught in the maelstrom of world events beyond his control and yet complicit in their consequence. Khalezin and his company cry out with the voice of activisim against oppression and indoctrination. Their weapon is art and they wield it with the full force of theatre. The horror of a Grimm’s fairy tale collides with the absurdity of a Leunig cartoon. Legend, myth and symbolism fuse in Belarus Free Theatre Company’s unmistakable banner of rebellion. Director Khalezin’s imaginative use of expressive physical theatre and evocative imagery forges an irrepressible impression in the heart and mind of an audience transfixed by the cascading images on stage and screen. Sysiphus-like a naked figure rolls a huge ball of discarded books across the stage. Feathers fly from Michuan’s goose and banned and discarded books, those guardians of wisdom, knowledge and tradition lie littered and abandoned at the front of the stage.
Throughout an image of a panda
appears on the screen, constantly climbing a tree into the clouds beyond. It is
a symbol of peace and new beginnings constantly out of reach. A hunchback fires
a wooden gun but dies of a real wound in a pool of blood. Fantasy and reality
fuse in the fast moving sequence of scenes that culminate in the actor playing
the young Michuan emerging naked and running throughout the interval until he
changes character and clothing to become a servant of the state and the
detective in search of the man who died leaving his small book of poetry and a
white feather. It is a search for enlightenment, for meaning and a world
destroyed by the autocracy of evil and the indifference that is its complicit
enabler.
We have seen it all before and
now it is happening again. The Nazi book burnings of 1933 heralded an Armageddon
that would lie dormant until the Kraken once mor awoke. Bacharevic’s novel is today’s reality as
Putin pursues his terrifying expansionist self-proclaimed dream of restoration
of a Russian empire, a New Reich. Belarus Free Theatre’s artillery is the
weaponry of theatre, the art of protest and the intellectual and emotional combatant
of oppression. Dogs of Europe is a
theatrical spectacle at its most powerful and empowering. It is a visceral
force that transcends indifference. It is Epic Theatre in the Brechtian
tradition compelling our judgement and inciting protest. On stage a brilliant
ensemble of actors transport us through heart stopping, eye opening moments of
suspense, terror, fantasy, black comedy and absurdity. On video, images tease
our intellect while also providing locations and chapter titles . The pace is relentless
and the surtitles flash swiftly before our eyes, inviting us to keep up with
the action. We become active participants in this production’s cause. We become
complicit in the production’s protest.
It was Cate Blanchett who
suggested to Neil Armfield that he must invite this company and its production of
Dogs of Europe to the Adelaide
Festival. Audiences should remain ever grateful to Cate Blanchett and Neil
Armfield and the Belarus Free Theatre for bringing this outstanding work to
Adelaide. Every aspect of the production is brilliantly conceived, superbly
staged and powerfully engaging. More than that, it demands debate and provokes
action against tyranny and violence. It will forever remain an unforgettable
triumph at this year’s Adelaide Festival.
The audience stand in ovation as
the actors appear with a banner that states “Belarus Theatre stands with
Ukraine.” I choke as I write these words. At one end an actor stands with the Belarus
flag. At the other end an actor holds the Ukraine flag. And the applause
continues as they cry out from the stage their support for Ukraine. It is a cry that echoes through the audience and stays with you as you leave the theatre. The fight for freedom goes on.
Photos by Adam Forte
