Gifford Irvine, David E. Frank, Anthony Sannazzarro (Photo by Paul M. Rubenstein)
Reviewed by Martίn Hernández
City Garage at Bergamont Station
Through October 15
RECOMMENDED
“You are a perfectly normal person. You just survived a terrible and nightmarish war. Other than that, everything is fine, everything is fine.” While these words are intoned to soothe a victim of the war in Ukraine, how can things be fine when a soldier witnesses the slaughter of his fellow troops, a family is tormented by thuggish Russian soldiers, or a reporter endures torture from a psychopathic FSB agent?
Ukrainian playwright Andriy Bondarenko brings the horrors inflicted on his compatriots by Russia’s invasion to surrealistic life with three intertwining tales, translated by John Freedman with Vladyslav Hetmanenko. Bondarenko’s play is a compelling reminder that war is visited on the innocent, who have little say in how a war starts or when it will end.
Iura (David E. Frank), a PTSD-plagued Ukrainian soldier, seeks aid from a Doctor (Andy Kallok) for his hiccups and the “scary things” he sees at night in “The Butterfly.” The Doctor relates a fable about a Chinese mystic who, upon waking from a dream, asks himself if he was a mystic dreaming he was a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming he was the mystic. This sets Iura on a supernatural voyage as he flashes back to battle scenes with comrades Orestes (Anthony Sannazzarro) and Romchyk (Gifford Irvine), all of whom alternate between death and resurrection as they battle invading mechanical aliens that are video projected on the backstage wall. Iura’s wife Iulia (Léa De Carmo) also appears as a specter, reciting from Iura’s favorite book of poetry and reminding him of his brittle humanity.
“The Dowry” opens with slide projections of a wolf, a harbinger of Russian menace. Older couple Trokhim (Kallok) and Maria (Juliet Morisson) are concerned about their catatonic pregnant daughter Halia (De Carmo), as well as the nearby Russian Army. Halia sits at a distance from her parents and silently knits a red scarf when Tiny (Isaac Stackonis) and Banana (Sannazzaro), two brutal Russian soldiers, burst in and declare their special mission. As they threaten the family and their goal becomes clearer, Halia arises from her stupor and confronts the intruders, whose bizarre contortions, coupled with the projections of wolf images, reveal a bestial nature that puts the household — allegoric of Ukraine itself — at a higher risk.
Iuliia (Angela Beyer) is arrested as a spy in a Russian-occupied region of Ukraine in “Crime and Punishment.” Even as she insists she is a journalist on leave to evacuate her mother, Gennadiy (Irvine), a Federal Security Service agent, dismisses her as a liar and prepares to torture her for the truth — and to satisfy his own sadistic whims. The two engage in a nationalist battle of wits, with Gennadiy naming each of his ghastly methods after a classic Russian literary works and Iuliia countering with darkly comedic reminders of Ukrainian influence on many of the tomes her torturer extols (“Did you know that Chekhov wrote specifically about a Ukrainian cherry orchard?”)
Director Fréderique Michel effectively complements Bondarenko’s dreamlike work with live video that provide full-face depictions of the characters, as well as recorded images (video designed by Sannazzaro). Other creative staging choices, such as soldiers carting off wooden crates as if they were their own coffins and Charles Duncombe’s moody lightning — along with sturdy performances from the ensemble —– heighten the stark nature of Bondarenko’s opus.
The play’s Brechtian style, with some actors speaking to the audience instead of to each other, has the characters serve more as symbols than as full-fledged people, though the negative depiction of the Russians fosters more sympathy for the Ukrainians, which is the goal of the play. Bondarenko’s denouement also bitterly reminds us that having a perennial, dehumanized bogeyman to pin hate on is vital to for justifying and enduring any war.
City Garage at Bergamot Station 2525 Michigan Ave., Building T, Santa Monica; Fri.- Sat. 8 pm; Sun., 4 pm; Through Oct. 15. https://citygarage.org (Running time one hundred minutes with no intermission.)
