Russian riot grrls rule in unruly ‘Pussy Riot’ at CATF

The saying goes, all you need to become a punk rock band is three chords and the truth.

Russian performance artists and feminist activists Pussy Riot couldn’t play three chords but their truth—spoken loud and proud in a Moscow church in 2012—incited the wrath of Putin and the Orthodox Church and turned them into a social media cause celebre.

Their story blisters to life in We Are Pussy Riot, an in-your-face mix of ripped-from-the-transcripts dialogue, performance art, improv and fourth-wall shattering by Barbara Hammond and directed with rebel verve by Tea Alagic.

No sitting at a polite distance in this production. Pre-show, you are herded into the lobby where stern Soviet security guards prowl menacingly. All of a sudden, a gang of young women in colorful dresses, combat boots and ski masks—Pussy Riot—come roaring in, shouting blasphemous manifestos and profanity-laced chants. They are quickly hauled away and we enter the theater, through heavy security checkpoints.

Led into a Russian icon-lined space, the audience then becomes onlookers at a trial so farcical it would make Ionesco feel right at home. Nadya (Libby Matthrews), Masha (Liba Vaynberg) and Katya (Katya Stepanov) are accused of “hooliganism” and religious hatred.

The unorthodox “Three Sisters” don’t fully understand the barrage of charges against them and any chance to speak out is quickly stifled. Trapped behind a plexiglass wall, the trio is forced to watch the dismissive judge (Sarah Nealis)—who probably would have preferred they were burned at the stake right in the courtroom, to save time—the bureaucratic prosecutor (T. Ryder Smith) and the clown-like, daffy defense attorney (Cary Donaldson) go through this three-ring trial. Some audience members are even chosen to go up on stage and cajoled to play witness.

Two of the Pussy Riot girls are sentenced to two years in a labor camp (the third gets out on a technicality), but they were hardly invisible. Their act, and the subsequent YouTube video, went viral and the world celebrated their rebel-girl image—their feminist politics, not so much.

Hammond crafts the Pussy Riot girls’ dialogue from closing statements, transcripts and prison diaries—and their speech is part defiant manifesto bravado and part despair. We don’t get a clear indication of their individual personalities, but perhaps we’re not meant to, since their repeated slogan is “We Are All Pussy Riot.”

Their subsequent fame, championed by that master manipulator of media, Madonna—is depicted in funny but scathing scene where the glammed up Nadya and Masha join the Material Girl in an increasingly frenzied dance to “Vogue.”

However, their story is powerfully contrasted to that of Sergey (the excellent T. Ryder Smith), a professor on a hunger strike inspired by the Bolotnaya Square prisoners. His philosophic and poetic rambles to a doctor named Anna (Sarah Nealis), which involve other famous Annas, such as Karenina and poet Akhmatova, give a weighty historic perspective. Sergey’s tormented musings also call into play whether Russia’s repeated history of oppression and violence is predicated on a long string of iron-fisted rulers and religious persecution or is it indicative of their national character? Putin is Stalin is Ivan the Terrible, only in a westernized suit.

Like its inspiration, We Are Pussy Riot shocks and provokes, but sometimes tries too hard—you kinda lose the thread when the Pussy Riot girls cradle babies with Ivan the Terrible masks or Anna grotesquely gives birth to a fully-grown Putin.

Yet, the saga of Pussy Riot comes through loud and clear. They paid the price for their outspokenness, their outrageous performance art, but they also became famous—their likenesses revered and copied on social media, becoming the modern-day manifestation of the Russian religious icons that line the theater walls.

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We Are Pussy Riot by Barbara Hammond . Directed by Tea Alagic . Featuring Libby Matthews, Liba Vaynberg, Katya Stepanov, Sarah Nealis, T. Ryder Smith, Cary Donaldson, Adam Phillips, Allyson Malandra, Keyla McClure and Brianne Taylor . Set Designer Peter Ksander . Costume Designer Trevor Bowen . Lighting Designer D.M. Wood . Sound Designer Elisheba Ittoop . Video/Projection Designer Matthew Haber . Technical Director Josh Frachiseur . Production Stage Manager Deb Acquavella . Produced by Contemporary American Theater Festival . Reviewed by Jayne Blanchard.

Running in repertory through August 2 at the Contemporary American Theater Festival, Shepherdstown, West Virginia.

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