THEATRE

This outstanding company present two pieces – Minsk 2011 and Discover Love.

The first piece presents a picture of life in the city they feel so much for and which they cannot now see – Minsk, capital of their homeland, Belarus, the only remaining dictatorship in Europe.

These are extremely skilful actors. They take us to many different places and moods in the course of the show, and the speed with which they establish a new scene and new characters is very impressive. They are able to change mood and take the audience where they want them to be in seconds. We see many ways in which people’s lives are harassed and interfered with by authority, the many ways of finding it difficult to be true to yourself, and various kinds of underworld – from nightclubs to channelled rivers.

The problems of having a Pride march, and the struggle to live as LGBT are also covered very effectively. The problems of having any coherent sex life, and the way a dictatorship corrodes all aspects of life, is clearly shown. There are also emotional moments when officialdom shows no respect for family feelings.

We see how authority stains the skin of the dissident – of the citizen – in order to control – maybe staining the whole of the citizen. This is a particularly stunning scene. In the midst of this, there is humour and a wide range of emotions. And of course there is also the desire for the redemption of the homeland, and feelings of deep attachment.

This is a show to be seen not because of a political situation, but because these are some of the most professional, versatile and captivating actors you will see on the Fringe this year.

Discover Love  is a more intimate show than the Minsk 2011 show that Belarus Free Theatre are also showing. However, the show is book-ended by on-screen statements about the fate of The Disappeared and the need to ensure that civil rights are acknowledged worldwide so that it is impossible for citizens to be deprived of their liberty anonymously and held without trial. This would be an excellent situation, but we are far from it in many places.

The play tells the story of one woman from childhood, her lack of a father, her first loves, and then her meeting with the teacher who was to become her husband – with whom she had two daughters and lived for many years. These were years in which they were active in many areas, including democracy campaigns, until the day her husband went to the sauna with a friend and never returned. We learn of her campaigning since this happened in 1999. The story is based on the life of a real person in Belarus.

The acting, plus movement and dancing, here is extremely good, and the emotions of the characters are conveyed with much subtlety. The three person cast of Marina Yurevich, Oleg Sidorchik and Pavel Gorodnitski are very dynamic and resourceful. However, the story did not grab me emotionally in the way I thought it might – it was very moving, but not to a great depth. One reason for this may have been the great volume of words involved – we are given a great deal of detail about the early life of the central character and all this has to be read on the screens, so that we are almost caught between reading a story and watching a play. Maybe the dialogue could be trimmed a little, and time left to show relationships in action.

The whole drama is also done chronologically. Maybe starting some way through – at a point where difficulties occur, and then using flashback and flashforward, would wind the observer into the action more easily.

That said, this was a brilliantly executed, superbly acted piece, which fully deserved its standing ovation.  These brilliant performers, exiles from their own unfree land, deserve every kind of support they can be given.