Don’t forget to riot: We Are Pussy Riot review
By Sheroog Kubur, July 13 2023—
“We beg you not to forget“
– Pussy Riot
When you think of punk, normally theatre isn’t the first thing that comes to mind. So when Holy Fools Theatre announced they would be putting on a theatrical performance detailing the arrest of the Russian feminist protest group Pussy Riot, there was natural confusion. But the fringe nature of the show combined with clever setting choices and direction created an experience that was perfectly aligned with the Pussy Riot message.
The show started before audiences realized it — a masked man walked along the rows handing patrons small cards with Article 31 of the Russian constitution, detailing the right to peacefully protest. Shortly after the cast, donning brightly coloured balaclavas, broke out into a song about the world we live in today, singing lyrics like “who needs water when we have oil?” and accusing all of the rats of Alberta moving into the government to work as bureaucrats.
The play followed two parallel narratives — the high-profile arrest of Maria, Nadya and Katya and the arrest of a history professor, Sergei, as a representation of all the people that were arrested without a publicized trial. Sergei’s was much less sensational, instead showing his experience on hunger strike whilst in prison. Watching the experiences happen side-by-side was harrowing — to see a man fade into obscurity despite the publicized nature of the entire case.
The show was broken up by moments of comedy amidst the dark subject matter — like Marylin Monroe singing “Happy Birthday” for President Vladimir Putin or his entrance being a club sequence with neon lights. While these moments were sometimes distracting from the main storyline, they added moments to breathe between the high tension. The details of these moments only further emphasized the central themes of the story, like when a woman who was an ardent supporter of the Russian government was the first to remark on the amount of blood that can’t be cleaned off of the church’s steps while the president and patriarch of the church cozied up to each other in the background of each set.
The part that stuck out throughout the entire show was the importance of names, both as a tool to affirm identity and also as a means of causing harm. The introduction of the Pussy Riot members was them refusing to give their real names, instead opting for famous feminists like Simone de Beauvoir. The group emphasized how, despite being a Russian group, the words “pussy” and “riot” were chosen to both offend and mitigate the effects of such colloquially dangerous words. The show ended with each cast member giving their full name, place of birth and birthday. The point of Pussy Riot is the anonymity that the name gives you — all you need is a balaclava and your own will to be Pussy Riot, so to witness the cast break immersion by identifying themselves so clearly was powerful.
Above all else, Everything is P.R. was a show about the cost of resistance. It wasn’t showing the romanticized version of protests that are often depicted in popular media, it showed the cost of putting everything on the line in the name of something you believe in. At one point, the police lambasted Pussy Riot claiming that the reason young people are the ones protesting is because they have the least to lose, and this show proved that. It was a cautionary tale, but not a warning.