I would love to be positive about this show at the Almeida by a company which has become a symbol of resistance to the dictatorial regime of Alexander Lukashenko in Belarus, a place that makes Putin's Russia look like a liberal paradise. Unfortunately I found it tedious and disappointing and escaped at the interval, which rules out a proper review.
However, as most critics seem to have swallowed their doubts in order to show political support for a company battling against repression, I think it's only fair to give a brief account of why I didn't enjoy most of what I saw. The show is a collection of unrelated sketches in Russian and English by writers from a dozen or so European countries, framed as a round trip on the mythical Eurepica airline. But the framing has nothing to do with the content of the sketches, most of which are embarrassingly weak and poorly translated into English. The basic flaw in Vladimir Shcherban's direction is that text and physical action seem mostly disconnected; too often the words are a droning soundtrack which has little to do with what happens on stage. There are too many clever look-at-us theatrical tricks, some of which have the musty feel of the old Soviet-era avant-garde I remember from Moscow underground theatre in the early 1980s. The only sketch that worked for me was a sharply political one from Belarus itself, a monologue by a thuggish policeman to a student, represented by a watermelon. As the watermelon is first strangled, then attacked with a knife, a striking theatrical image emerges. Most of the rest of the material misfires, though I have no doubt it will press the right buttons with audiences on the Edinburgh Fringe.
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