Reviewed by James Karas
Russia’s
beastly attack on Ukraine has been in the news
daily until it was somewhat sidelined by the Israel-Hamas War on October 7,
2023. The extent of the human and material cost is incalculable and incomprehensible.
It is impossible for us to comprehend what the people of Ukraine are going
through regardless of how many images we see and stories that we read.
Playwright Natal’ya Vorozhbit’s in Bad Roads attempts
to give us some idea of the brutality of the invasion of Crimea by Russia in 2014 and the beginning of the horrors and evil of
humanity meted out on Ukraine. The play was
written in 2017 and we do get some idea of what happened then and what is
happening now but I still believe that it is impossible to grasp the extent of
the harm done and the evil at work in that country.
The play consists of six scenes or episodes that have some connecting links and I will make brief comments on each.
ONE
Of the six scenes of Bad Roads, five take
place during the conflict and one occurs before the war. In the first segment,
Natasha (Michele Monteith) a woman of forty with a small daughter, addresses
Sergei, her lover. She is a journalist and he is an officer in the Ukrainian
army and she is interviewing him about the defence of an airport.
Monteith does marvelous work as she works through
the script that weaves the personal relationship and the national story, her
relationship with Sergei and the events of the war. She mixes the banal, the
erotic and the events of a horrible war in the style of the journalist that she
is. It is a moving piece of prose that gives the fundamentals of an incident in
the war together with the personal story of the narrator. She is frequently funny, always
engaging and moving.
Photo: Dahlia Katz
TWO
Three teenagers trade stories about being young
during a war and putting out for soldiers. They are described as Teenage girl 1
(Shauna Thompson), Teenage girl 2 (Michelle Monteith) and Teenage girls 3 (Katherine
Gauthier). They get presents from the men that they have sex with and all they
do is wait for the whistle from one of them.
It is a subtle, understated and devastating snapshot
of what war does to teenagers who have nothing left to offer but their bodies
to soldiers. They even imagine that they love them or want them. Among the
girls’ giggles, this is a subtle portrayal of what even young people descend to
in time of war.
THREE
The third vignette shows what can happen when a Headteacher
(Diego Matamoros) tries to pass a checkpoint at night. He is drunk and carries
his wife’s passport and not his own. The Commander (Craig Lauzon) and the
soldier (Andrew Chown) at the checkpoint are abusive and make it clear that in
a war zone you can’t go to the toilet without a valid passport. But that is not
the real story. What the Commander is up to with the missing girl Tanya is the
subtext of the scene. He swears that as
an officer he is not doing anything untoward. The Headmaster decides to believe
the Commander. We don’t.
FOUR
A soldier (Craig Lauzon) and a woman (Shauna
Thompson) are driving over a bad, deserted road at night. She is
tough and domineering to the point of being abusive. The soldier is submissive
and tries to be polite. Before the war, he was a professional swimmer and she
had a travel agency. It is freezing cold and the car engine will not start
after a brief stop. She suggests that they have sex to keep warm.
He hesitates because they are carrying the headless
body of her lover who was the soldier’s commander. Then she gets a text message
purportedly from her lover who of course is dead. The Russians who cut off his
head are sending a message on the dead man’s phone asking her to go and find
his head.
In a scene of supreme irony, the two keep warm or at
least alive by using the dead man’s body bag for cover. An unbelievable scene.
FIVE
A teenager
(Katherine Gauthier) and the psychotic soldier (Andrew Chown) are in a dark
basement. He is a sadistic creep, a foul-mouthed and filthy-minded enemy officer
who has drunk the Russian Cool-aid and
is intent on sexually humiliating the teenager. She is no fool and manages to
stave off his demands by keeping him talking. It is a powerful and frightful episode
that has its own conclusion. Gauthier and Chown give powerful performances.
SIX
The final episode takes place before the war and I
found it to be the weakest among the previous scenes. A girl (Shauna Thompson) stops
at a house to confess that she has run over a chicken on the road. She offers to
pay the owners, Vasya (Matamoros) and his wife (Seana McKenna), for their loss.
They turn out to be incredibly greedy and the girl does not have enough cash to
meet their demands. She agrees to go get the cash and return. She returns.
Vorozhbit may wish to point out that greed can occur
at any time which is true. What I could not understand is why did the girl who
has a nice car and some jewelry returns to the
two extortionists. They do find their humanity and the girl does not have to
pay but the segment left me cold. Extortionists do not change their ways that
easily.
The play is produced in the tiny Studio Theatre
which restricts the provision of many sets and scenery. Director Andrew Kushnir
does superb work without much in the way of sets especially
by underplaying the vicious scenes. The violent
language is there but the acts of violence are played down and more effective
for that.
The seven actors play at least two roles each and their acting is
outstanding. The play lasts almost two hours without intermission and its
impact is stunning. A supreme representation of people in the grip of a
harrowing war. Giving us a fifteen-minute interval would not have diminished
the impact of the play.
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