by Dr. David Glen Robinson
This play, written in 2003, may reach an apex in the new generation of Russian plays. Breaking String Theater Company is getting used to this Russian art explosion, having produced a number of Russian plays in translation, and producing this extremely well written comedy with an exceptional ensemble of some of Austin’s most talented actors. Liz Fisher directs Vodka, Fucking and Television for Breaking String.The only speed bump in the raceway to success for this sparkling vehicle is the obscenity in the title, which seems to have inhibited some of the more conventional marketing modes. No problem. Judging from the enthusiastic audience on opening night, word of mouth alone will counteract the dearth of posters in grocery stores.
The story behind VF+T is that of Russian theatrical creativity since the fall of the Soviet Union. The conduit for funneling the best new plays into English translations and on into the English-speaking world has been John Freedman, theatre writer for the Moscow Times. Graham Schmidt, Breaking String’s producing artistic director, describes Freedman as the rare man in the right place at the right time: he was visiting Moscow on a Fulbright to write his doctoral dissertation on Russian playwright Erdman when the Iron Curtain fell. Freedman moved to Russia, and the rest is ongoing cultural arts history. Freedman has been instrumental in bringing Maksym Kurochkin to the attention of the West. For more on this story, read Michael Meigs’ profile of VF+T and Liz Fisher for AustinLiveTheatre.com.
VF+T takes its title from the three vices that beset a 33-year-old writer and Red Army veteran variously referred to as Hero, Poet or Writer. His name is just as symbolic as are those of the other characters. He is Everyman (artist variant), portrayed by Noel Gaulin. In one of the most effective play openings that I have seen in the curtainless postmodern era, the house opens with Gaulin already onstage in pajamas and robe in the midst of his small but serviceable Moscow flat. The interior design is definitely post-Soviet Union; the room has central heating.
Gaulin spins and contorts in apparent writer’s block, his grimacing face lit mostly by the laptop screen mocking him with its emptiness. The vices have a peculiar presence in the apartment, too: the flat-screen TV blares, and, pity Russia, its daytime TV is worse than ours (unfortunately, a good third of the audience misses the flat screen amusements because a table and pile of blankets block them). The kitchen sink if full of dirty dishes and used drinking glasses and bottles of vodka and wine are everywhere. The bed clothing and scattered blankets and comforters convey the tumbled look of recent sex, hinting perhaps at more to come.
Hero struggles and eventually declines into a a giant hallucinatory spasm. The personified vices materialize and swirl around him. The vices loudly claim triumph over the writer, backing him into every corner in the flat. Clutching for control, Hero declares that he will reclaim mastery if he can banish at least one of the vices from his life.
The rest of the play is a kind of reverse Judgment of Paris. Hero insists that each vice must make its best case for staying in his life, and he says he will expel the vice with the least compelling argument. Of course, aided by addictive denial, all the vices make great cases for themselves. The ensuing speeches are a showcase of Kurochkin’s writing skill, and they all jab and torture Hero’s weakening psyche.
Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .
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