Theater of Resistance?

GENERATION JEANS
Belarus Free Theatre

The story of the Belarus Free Theatre is an inspiring and upsetting one. The current Belarusian government sponsors a culture of censored artistic freedoms. Performing quite literally under the radar in small apartments and basements, and each time risking the arrest of both the actors and the whole audience, the Free Theatre’s credo states that their task “will be ended when the situation in Belarus will be changed from dictatorial regime to democracy.”

Equally inspiring and upsetting is the story that Nikolai Khalezin tells when he takes to the Public’s less censoring stage. In an hour and a half long monologue underscored by a Velvet Revolution soundtrack mixed live by DJ Laurel, Khalezin tells of the path that led him to a life of political activism and resistance, of the political heroes that have inspired him, of time spent in prison, and of his trafficking of the durable trousers that have come to symbolize those individuals who eschew the luxury suite culture of “The Man” to speak out for rights of the people. His persistent optimism is striking, ultimately reaching out to his audience with a perhaps too easy, but nonetheless affecting plea—a kind of anointment of we participatory spectators as inheritors of the transgenerational, international jeans generation.

Particularly intriguing and thought provoking is the utter lack of the theatrical convention familiar to American theatre audiences. Khalezin simply tells it like it is, with performative flourish and theatrical gesture few and far between. The momentum of his tale can be labored, and his simplicity almost alienating at times, and yet there is a deeply welled honesty in his presentation. The raw minimalism of Khalezin’s performance brings to the fore an inevitable comparison, given the backstory to the Free Theatre of Belarus. What must it be like to view a piece like this in a Belarusian basement? I cannot claim to know much about Belarusian theatre beyond this one performance. But I wonder in a culture with a relative dearth of freely articulated storytelling, what is the experience of watching this sparsely theatrical tale?

Generation Jeans’s Under the Radar performances come now with a somewhat unfortunate preface. Festival producer Mark Russell begins each night with an apology: there is a moment late in the show when, ideally, Khalezin lights a hunk of flammable solid and stands holding a burning ball. Because of New York City fire code, Under the Radar cannot allow Khalezin to actual set anything ablaze. “Use your imagination,” Russell pleads. A friend of mine who is working for Under the Radar tells me that in their first performance, having never run the show fully during tech, Khalezin actually lit the hunk of flammable solid, much to the shock and mild heart attacks of the crew standing in the wings. The restriction was levied in subsequent performances, and so too Mark Russell’s introduction at the Free Theatre’s request. Am I the only one that finds this editing deeply, perhaps sadly ironic?

Really I think the qualification is unnecessary. I found the sans-flame moment perfectly theatrical and effective; the DJ brings up the music and Khalezin stands there with his characteristic stoicism. The point is made. But the acceptance of fire codes highlighted by Russell’s preface deepens the comparison between the two national theatres and up a concern that I find constantly plaguing as a young person making a way in theatre: Can theatre in America be an act of revolution? Seeing Generation Jeans at the Public feels less like an act of resistance and more like a diluted, but nonetheless important, lesson on artistic censorship in one corner of the world. In being presented in an openly advertised theatre, an in accepting New York City fire codes, is Khalezin’s performance not somewhat undermined? I can imagine the sensation of actively taking part in revolution that might be felt by a Belarusian audience member, but I certainly don’t feel it myself. If not here, where can we now find a forum for resistance?

Elliot B. Quick