By Charlize Althea Garcia, Nov. 26, 2024
In 2000, Vladamir Putin was elected president. In 2012, he was re-elected. In 2024, he is still president.
Pussy. Riot.
Two words deemed controversial to Russia in 2012 but even more relevant now. And the CPP Theatre and New Dance department reminded the Cal Poly Pomona audience with its last show of the season with “We Are Pussy Riot, or Everything Is P.R” Nov. 14.
Pussy Riot is a Russian feminist art collective formed in 2011 intended to oppose Vladamir Putin’s regime. The group protested in the form of guerilla concerts, performing punk songs in various locations such as government buildings and shopping malls in Moscow.
The rebellion started in the lobby of the University Theatre with various cast members in ski masks yelling “Church! State! Separate!”
Their message consisted of anti-Putinism, feminism, LGBTQ+ rights and environmental justice for the sake of Russia and in the name of punk. Nadezhda (Nadya) Tolokonnikova founded Pussy Riot and was joined with 11 other members including Masha Alyokhina and Katya Samutsevich. These three became Russia’s most wanted and hated.
“Their purpose was to wake people up to what was going on around them and within them,” said Playright Barbara Hammond in the play script . “They are not partisan. They hold up a mirror to what we are becoming or could become if we are not vigilant. Sometimes that is better accomplished with a whisper than a scream.”
“We Are Pussy Riot, or Everything Is P.R.” is set in February 2012 following the three members of Pussy Riot during a protest in Russia’s beloved cathedral by both religious and government officials. They performed a “punk prayer,” dancing, singing and screaming “Mother of God, Banish Putin” while punching the air and calling Virgin Mary to “become a feminist” and rid Russia of Putin. The 40-second act of protest soon led to their arrest and a global movement.
The play was attractive to the department because of its political resonance, according to director and theater professor Bernardo Solano.
“All of that resonated with the United States,” said Solano. “Even though we’re telling a story that takes place in Russia, I don’t think it’s a big stretch to the imagination to sort of go, ‘Hmm, what does that remind me of?’”
In circumstances so jarring, satire cushioned the blow in the production: Putin was a character feigning for the audience’s approval and likeness, lawyers were in the form of hand puppets and the patriarch besotted with Putin’s friendship, all while placing the girls in a spotlight for derision.
Though the female narrative is never buried, much so amplified in its set design and costume incorporating yonic imagery through props and items of clothing. The cathedral was adorned with stained glass patterned to display a vagina and Pussy Riot members’ denim jackets bluntly showcased a vulva in fabric textiles.
Amid the trial, the play featured scenes of a jailed university professor Sergei, played by theatre student Dom Carson, who posed as a composite character depicting flashbacks of Russia’s corruption and daydreams of a new Russia. His character is reminiscent of Alexei Navalny, leader of Russian opposition and the founder of the Anti-Corruption Foundation who was found dead in a Russian prison earlier this year.
The cast and crew are intentional when noting the parallelism of the play and the ongoing politics in the United States and Russia.
“I feel like if we didn’t live where we lived, there’s a great possibility we would’ve been shut down,” said Amber Lopez, who played Katya. “There are places where what we’re saying is too much, but I think it’s just enough for the times now that what is said should be heard.”
They referenced the outcome of the recent presidential election results and the collective disappointment felt within the cast and crew. On the night of the election, the cast attended rehearsal in which phones were required to be put away, preventing the cast from following the presidential race. As soon as they checked their phones, the words from the playscript had shifted meaning. They felt that they were not referring to only one president but another: Donald Trump.
“It’s just so relevant to the times from back then to now,” said theatre student Meleena Lopez, who played Masha. “In 20 years to the future, it’s still going to be relevant. People like to write off politics because they think it doesn’t affect them but really it does. All of our basic rights have to do with politics. I don’t know. How else can you say it?”
The program warned the audience of fog and haze, gunshot sound effects, simulated violence, profanity and possibly scary moments. But the play’s warning drew deeper than imagined elements of theater; it held a warning of what could become reality.
“I hope that our audience understands a little bit more that this is a particular story about how artists were punished for speaking their mind and protesting, and that we’re not too far a world where our own artists could be punished or censored,” said Solano. “But it extends beyond art.”
Solano mentioned, in agreement with one of the play’s themes, being an artist is to have gained a newfound obligation: agency, that artists have the ability to be activists. “We Are Pussy Riot, or Everything Is P.R.” proved the message true by drawing attention to treatment of women in Russia, politics and questions concerning church and state.
“We have a duty,” said CPP alumna Sadaf Shariff, who played Nadya. “We have an artistic duty. And like Nadya says, ‘If you aren’t thinking about politics, politics are going to be thinking about you.’”
A month prior to opening night, Solano mentioned meeting real-life Nadya Tolokonnikova with the cast and crew at an event in Los Angeles. In a question inquiring the intended achievement with this play, she answered with:
“Make your government shit its pants.”
Feature image courtesy of Teresa Acosta
