We Are Pussy Riot or Everything Is PR @ Imprint Theatreworks
—Jill Sweeney
“Art is not a mirror to reflect the world, but a hammer with which to shape it.” –Bertolt Brecht
“Art begins with a wound. Art is an attempt to learn to live with the wound.”—John Updike
“…the purpose of art is to expose the wound. You expose the wound and then it’s up to the participant in the art whether they are going to live with it or smash it. I don’t think the artist is holding the hammer. The audience decides what they want in their hands. They can have a scalpel or a hammer—or a tourniquet. My job is to expose the wound.”—Barbara Hammond
Nearly ten years and about that many lifetimes ago in February 2012, five members of the feminist punk collective Pussy Riot staged a guerilla performance inside Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Savior. Clad in neon dresses, leggings, and balaclava masks, the group stormed the altar, then punched, kicked, and danced for approximately forty-eight seconds, scream-singing a song entitled, “Punk Prayer: Mother of God, Drive Putin Away”, before they were dragged away by security.
Three members of the collective—Nadezhda Tolokonnikova (Nadia), Yekaterina Samutsevich (Katya), and Maria Alyokhina (Masha)— were subsequently arrested on charges of “hooliganism” motivated by religious hatred or hostility, facing sentences of as much as seven years in prison. The trial and the eventual conviction and imprisonment of Nadia and Masha drew international attention, leading to letters of support from world leaders and celebrities, even to protests in support of the women’s release. Perhaps in response to pressure prior to the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, President Vladimir Putin graciously released Nadia and Masha a few months before the end of their sentences. Pussy Riot, in one form or another, lived (and lives) to the tell the tale (Nadia herself actually made an appearance in Deep Ellum in October of this year protesting the passage of SB 8.)
It is largely this incident that forms the action, such as it is, of Barbara Hammond’s anarchic We Are Pussy Riot or Everything is PR, staged in its regional premiere by Imprint Theatreworks and directed by Imprint’s Artistic Director Ashley H. White. More performance piece than play, and (over) stuffed with ideas and political sloganeering, We Are Pussy Riot never quite adds up to more than the sum of its parts, despite some sparkling performances from Imprint’s cast.
Monalisa Amidar (Nadia), Sienna Riehle (Masha), and Kyley Sanchez (Katya) play the three members of Pussy Riot on trial and the three actors strive to give some individuality and soul to what amount more to collections of quotations and slogans than actual characters, with varying degrees of success. Amidar stands out in particular as Nadia, with a too-cool-for-this-bullshit flair and a running ad-libbed commentary on the action. Micah Brooks is understated but affecting as Sergei, a political prisoner and former history professor who’s able to offer more context for the Russian political climate of the day. Dani Holway’s Prosecutor is a nasty bit of business well-executed, as is her more vapid send-up of Madonna, flashing scrawled support of Pussy Riot on her back during a Russian concert appearance.
But it’s Meagan Harris’ Putin who steals the show, making perhaps too engaging a buffoon out of President Putin. Clad in an intentionally bad bald cap, novelty t-shirts, and sporting a Boris-and-Natasha Russian accent, Harris’ Putin preens and struts across the stage, often pelvis first if there’s an attractive female nearby, getting big laughs in almost every scene. But the balance has perhaps been lost—in scenes meant to convey Putin’s genuine menace, things fall flat.
We Are Pussy Riot or Everything is PR is chock full of big ideas, and there’s no joy in noting that the play’s themes of governmental overreach, of a blurring of the lines between church and state, speak more to this moment here in America than they did even when the play was originally staged in 2015. Whether it’s the call to action—to all of us, collectively, standing up as Pussy Riot—that the playwright sought in writing it? Your mileage may vary. Still, kudos to Imprint Theatreworks’ for continuing to bring new and boundary-pushing art to the local theater scene.
Running from October 29th through November 13th
More info here: https://imprinttheatreworks.org/
