The Kremlin is stifling Russian culture. But its attempts to create an alternative, pro-war one have been markedly less successful
underground theatre in the shadows of a railway line in Moscow, a crowd has fallen into what can only be described as nervous hysterics. Individual acts of defiance are unusual in the age of Z . A collective endeavour such as this appears to trigger extreme emotions. The play being performed is a comic take on a biblical classic, but the contemporary allusions are not hard to fathom.
Zhenya Berkovich, the play’s writer and director, is a rare breed in today’s Russia: a young creative type declining to take the heavy hints to shut up. Even as Vladimir Putin’s “special operation” struggles to make progress in Ukraine, the fear and conformity it has instilled at home mean that domestically, at least, it is yielding real results.
Ms Berkovich says she is under little illusion about the reach and effects of her own work, which she describes as a “modest personal survival mechanism”. Theatre touched only a tiny part of the population at the best of times, she says. In the context of Z-Russia, writing a play that “emphasises the miracle of life” was equivalent to no more than a “mosquito dance”. She sympathises with those who think politically engaged citizens should have different priorities now.
The aim of the show was to emphasise “Russia’s aesthetic and ethical sovereignty”. But the confusing paintings, which depicted buff soldiers in poppy fields, left most of the visitors perplexed. Were they Wagner soldiers? One woman wondered aloud if the images were homoerotic, only to be drowned out with shouts of “Provocation!”
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