The text of Narinskaya’s play comprises fragments of ‘last words’ made by nine women daring to speak truth to power, but they symbolise every female voice, so one woman plays them all: Alisa Khazanova, on whose idea the play is based. As it opens, she stands enclosed in a cage represented by the walled confines of the stage. Video projections shift the locale – from courtroom to police transport to detention centre – but at the same time we feel a surreal sense of purgatory, which, the writer says, “we can interpret as being the Russia of today”.
The script draws on the words uttered by the caged women, often spoken whilst the text is shown onscreen. A second, male performer, Ivan Ivashkin, supports Khazanova with equal extraordinary physicality. They are directed by fellow Russian Jew Maxim Didenko with all the passion and imagination he brought to Holocaust drama The White Factory at Marylebone Theatre last year.
