Theater review by Carol Rocamora…
Come down to La Mama in the East Village and you’ll see an amazing sight: a David facing a (metaphorical) Goliath, on a basketball court, in a theatre.
The intrepid Belarus Free Theatre (BFT) is back in town, dazzling us with its urgent mission, its stunning originality, and its arresting artistry – this time, with a new production called KS6: Small Forward. Praised as “the bravest theatre company on the planet” by the New York Times, their story is nothing short of miraculous.
A brief introduction to BFT is needed to give context to this unique new work. The company was founded in 2005 in opposition to Belarus’s cruel and oppressive Lukashenko regime. Immediately forced underground, the troupe’s courageous, determined founders, Natalia Kaliada and Nicolai Khalezin, were nonetheless able to produce numerous works championing freedom of artistic expression with a company of actors, performing in basements, garages, and forests, risking imprisonment if they were found. Moreover, through various clandestine means, company members were able to leave Minsk and travel to the UK, the US, and around the world, touring and performing their extraordinary, devised theatre works.
While touring abroad in early 2011, the founders received warnings from home that they’d be arrested if they returned to Belarus. Exiled, they were given a home at the Young Vic in London, where they continued to direct their company in Minsk via Skype. In 2015, they produced ten shows in London in a two-week festival called “Staging a Revolution.” By 2020, the company had created over 50 productions and toured internationally to over 40 countries.
In 2021, fearing reprisals if they remained, the sixteen-member acting company was forced to leave Belarus with their family members and relocate in Poland and London. Today, they continue to create theatre works that champion the cause of artistic freedom and human rights world-wide.
Having had the great privilege of seeing many of their productions both here and abroad, I am amazed every single time by the company’s originality and creativity, as well as their passion. Now, with this current production, they have reached new heights of artistry.
The title of this new work – KS6: Small Forward – refers to the initials and team position of the show’s narrator, Katsiaryna Snytsina (henceforth referred to as Katya), a Belarus basketball player who became an international star. Remarkably, the role is played by the towering, six-foot-two-inch athlete herself. Recounting her life story, Katya explains that she was destined to be a basketball player like both her parents. After describing the brutal training by a male Soviet coach (using the same techniques of suppression and humiliation that the Belarusian dictatorship employs), she goes on to tell of decades of travel throughout Europe with her team, unaware of the extent of Lukashenko’s tyranny. But in 2020, after violent protests erupted over Lukashenko’s false claim of winning reelection, she joined a group of other Belarus athletes and signed a letter against the regime. That ended their careers; some were imprisoned, others were forced into exile. Katya fled to London, where she joined a new basketball team, the London Lions, and became a star player and a vigorous political activist (as well as coming out as a lesbian).
Her dramatic story is brought to vivid life by spectacular theatricality, as staged by Kaliada and Khalezin, the company’s ever-inventive founders. Upon entering the La Mama auditorium, we are greeted by a live DJ, Blanka Barbara, who rules the on-stage basketball court (the set for the play) with pounding rock music. The music continues throughout the production, as the towering Katya enters to tell her life story, occasionally shooting baskets as she narrates (she scores each time, of course). She’s accompanied by several company members (Raman Shytsko, Darya Andreyanova, Mikalai Kuprych) playing multiple non-speaking roles – including riot police and Katya’s parents (whose heads are basket balls). A huge video screen towers above the court behind the basketball hoop. Like the music, it is alive throughout the production as Katya narrates, streaming multiple games (featuring Katya and the London Lions) as well as footage of the 2020 violent protests in Minsk (video design by Dmytro Guk).
Under Kaliada/Khalezin’s powerful direction, the stagecraft augments these scenes of violence. At one point, a masked man hands Katya a basketball which he then crushes, oozing blood all over her and the stage as well. In another scene, masked police build a glass booth in which they imprison Katya and then fill to the brim with basketballs till her body is crushed. This violent image was inspired by an actual event suffered by Katya’s wife, who was imprisoned in Belarus along with thirty-six other women in a cell meant for four inmates.
Indeed, BFT can be called a unique “theatre of images.” Their productions, more than any others I’ve seen in recent years, consistently feature the most powerful images – like the plastic tarp that suffocates the protestors in Being Harold Pinter (2006), or the waterboarding scene in Trash Cuisine (2015) that is followed by a horrifying moment as an actor eats a small bird, accompanied by the amplified sounds of its crushing bones. These images still haunt me, as do the messages they convey.
Wisely, the directors have provided some entertaining pauses – featuring, in one instance, an invitation to three audience members to come up on the stage to shoot baskets. (At another moment, Katya passed out pieces of candy to a delighted audience.) Ultimately, the combination of Katya’s commanding performance, live music, vivid videos, and arresting imagery make for a sensational evening of theatre packed into just ninety minutes.
Known as “the only theatre in Europe banned by its government on political grounds,” BFT is now celebrating its 19th season of championing artistic freedom and human rights. Each of its productions focuses on a specific theme: for example, Zone of Silence dramatizes the perils of everyday life under dictatorship; Being Harold Pinter features testimonies from Belarus political prisoners who have been tortured; Generation Jeans celebrates Western dress as a symbol of freedom; Price of Money exposes shameful economic inequality; Time of Women describes the brutal treatment of women in prison; Burning Doors dramatizes the consequences of political opposition; Discover Love memorializes those who have “disappeared” in Belarus because of speaking out….and so on.
As founder Khalezin once said, “theatre is more than theatre.” As is the BFT custom, there is a talk-back at the end of each performance. On the evening I attended (September 24), the director (Natalia) and star (Katya) were interviewed onstage, along with the current Belarus opposition leader Svetlana Tsikhanouskaya, whose husband is currently held in a Belarus prison. The live interview was being taped for NPR’s “Firing Line.”
During that interview, there was reference to some of BFT’s many international awards – including the Human Rights Prize of the French Republic (2007), the Atlantic Council Award (2011), and the Vaclav Havel Prize for Creative Dissent (2018).
In response, the ever-eloquent Natalia Kaliada commented succinctly: “The main trophy is freedom.” Clearly, the Belarus Free Theatre will continue to fight David’s fight against the Goliath of political oppression around the world.
Finally, when asked about the dreams of these passionate panelists, all in exile from Belarus, their deeply moving answer was unanimous: “We dream that someday we will be able to come home.”
KS6:Small Forward, a Belarus Free Theatre Production directed by Natalia Kaliada and Nicolai Khalezin, at the Ellen Stewart Theatre, La Mama , Now through October 13,
Photos by Nicolai Khalezin
