What happens when fur coats, dangerously high heels and babushka headscarves clash with the otherworldly elements of ancient fairytales? This past weekend, the Seeler Studio Theatre of the Kevin P. Mahaney ’84 Center for the Arts was transformed into a fantastical fusion between modern Russian reality and folklore. In the highly-anticipated faculty show The Fairytale Lives of Russian Girls, which ran from April 2-4, audiences were ushered into a world of evil witches, flying potatoes and hungry bears that magically, horrifyingly coincide with the lives of three girls navigating their way through post-Soviet Moscow.
A finalist for the prestigious Susan Smith Blackburn playwriting prize of 2012, the play was directed by Assistant Professor of Theatre Alex Draper ’88 and featured an all-female cast of seven students.
The play begins with a candidly bizarre monologue by 19-year-old Russian Masha, played by Lana Meyer ’17. Donning seductive, knee-high red boots with killer heels, Masha offers a tantalizing glimpse into her fantasy-ridden life in Moscow.
“Zhili byli,” she announces dramatically in her opening line, “in Russian means: they lived, they were. Once upon a time.”
This beautifully compact phrase – zhili byli – will echo throughout the rest of the play as the characters encounter various mystical obstacles in the most unexpected of places.
“I was, of course, always dreaming about running away into the forest,” Masha recounts in the story of how she ended up living with a bear. “’Cause that’s where everything good – meaning everything bad – happened.”
Masha’s monologue, delivered in a simultaneously riveting and offhand manner by Meyer, sets the casually outlandish tone that defines much of the play. And so the story – an intersection between peculiar fantasy and starkly honest narrative – is launched.
Set in 2005, The Fairytale Lives of Russian Girls depicts life in Russia after the breakdown of the strict communist regime. As eager investors flocked to the country in the ’90s, the market went insane. The year 2005 saw the cusp of the economic decline that inevitably followed the huge boom, when there still existed a sort of wonder surrounding the idea of quick riches in Russia. Stories circulated in which dirty vegetable sellers became supermodels overnight. People were enamored by the possibility of jumping from a difficult life into what was essentially a fairytale. Such is the premise of all the fantastical happenings of the play.
19-year-old Annie, the protagonist of the play, grew up in America under the care of her Russian immigrant mother, Olga, played by Kathleen Gudas ’16.5. Portrayed by Katie Weatherseed ’16.5, Annie is wide-eyed, innocent and lovable, voicing aloud all the important, disbelieving questions that allow the audience to keep up with the fast-paced – and at times convoluted – plotline.
Meanwhile, the heavily spray-tanned, tracksuit-clad Olga, whose Russian accent holds strong even after twenty years in the states, expresses disillusion toward her rote and monotonous lifestyle as a hairdresser. Like so many others, she is enchanted by the prospect of rebuilding one’s life in the booming economic hub of Russia, in the magical sense of a modern-day fairytale. And so, because she cannot leave herself, she sends Annie off to her Auntie Yaroslava’s house for the summer, with the hopes that her daughter will reap the fairytale rewards that Olga could have had if she had stayed.
In this way, The Fairytale Lives of Russian Girls challenges – and perhaps outright rejects – the validity of the traditionally revered American dream. No longer is the story centered on finding prosperity within the United States. Instead, it focuses on returning to the motherland in the aftermath of its revolutionary transformation.
Not everything on the other side of the ocean is rainbows and ponies, however.
“Sleep wis one eye open, baby,” are Olga’s parting words to Annie, as she pins an evil eye on her thick fur coat to ward off dangers that everyone reads about in skazki, old Russian fairytales. Her next comment drew huge laughs from the crowd: “It was dark ages when I receive zis. Literally. In Soviet Union, KGB turns on sun only one hour each day. Zey had switch.”
With these words haunting her mind, Annie sets off to meet her Auntie Yaroslava, played by Gabrielle Owens ’17. Little does Annie know, this kindly old woman is actually the evil witch Baba Yaga in disguise. Wrapped in tattered rags and usually shriveled over in her giant armchair, Baba Yaga is cursed to age one year whenever she is asked a question. As such, she winces painfully nearly every time the curious Annie speaks.
Owens enjoyed the unique challenges that her role presented, as she worked to “find the age of the character without losing any of the physicality or the emotions.”
“It’s sort of like playing the evil stepmother from Cinderella. It’s a very iconic character in Russian folklore who has many different incarnations,” she said. “The fun and challenging part was finding switches between when she is the evil witch and when she is masquerading, or is genuinely, a kind old lady. There are some moments when she really does care for this child. She also wants to eat her, of course, but there is a real person underneath.”
Outside of Auntie Yaroslava’s increasingly creepy apartment, the intersection of fantasy and real world continues, further bending the realm of possibility. Annie befriends three Russian girls with fascinating, albeit slightly concerning, tales of their own: Masha, who complains often of Misha, her (literal) bear of a boyfriend; Katya, the mistress of “the tsar,” as performed coyly by Leah Sarbib ’15.5; and other Katya, the tsar’s beautiful daughter, played by Caitlyn Meagher ’17. She also crosses paths with Nastya, the aloof prostitute, also played by Meagher.
Annie’s bright-eyed naiveté is shattered to some degree as she hesitantly, and comically, smokes her first cigarette, glimpses into a world of whoring and cheating and, in the culminating scenes of the play, grapples with such dangerous weapons as a pestle, ax and giant brick oven. Through it all, Weatherseed does not lose touch of the syrupy-sweetness that drew the audience to her from the beginning. Annie’s optimism may have dimmed, but Weatherseed shines on nevertheless.
Ultimately, it is the dynamism of the cast that makes this production of The Fairytale Lives of Russian Girls such a riveting one.
“It needs big, bold, visceral, engaged acting,” Draper said.
While some details of the storyline may be lost in the rapid, overwhelming flurry of dialogue, perhaps the play’s greatest strength lies in its humor, which stems from the contrast between the sheer outlandishness of the fantasy and the characters’ reaction to it. For instance, there is no denying that the presence of a bear in place of a human boyfriend is ridiculous. The script capitalizes on that, with Masha making such nonchalant references to “Misha the bear” – Russia’s take on the wolf in Little Red Riding Hood – that Annie initially assumes she is speaking metaphorically.
Brilliantly executed scene transitions brought the audience from one reality to another, traveling from Auntie Yaroslava’s living room to pulsing nightclubs to the streets of Moscow. Through masterful lighting by Resident Scenic and Lighting Designer Hallie Zieselman and the fluid rearrangement of a pair of intricately painted red doors, the stage was transformed time and time again.
According to Draper, the set needed to be “fluid enough to change very quickly and yet contain elements that let the modern, traditional and much older than traditional live in the same kind of space.”
In the bloody mess of relationships that culminates by the end of the play, the mantra is uttered, “This shit happens.” Yet the characters stand strong in the aftermath; some might even describe them as unfazed.
“Nothing was left behind. Just a brick oven full of ashes and the world’s largest vegetarian stew gone cold,” Katya proclaims in the final lines. “There was no sign that Anya Rabinovich had ever stepped foot in apartment 57.”
The haunting end of The Fairytale Lives of Russian Girls can be encapsulated by a variety of emotions: disillusion, shock, horror, confusion and even amusement. In the post-show discussion on Friday night, some speculated that the Annie’s abrupt departure following the gruesomely violent conclusion could be considered a “Russian happy ending.” After all, no longer will she be implicated in the fantastical dangers lurking around Auntie Yaroslava’s potato piles. Finally, she can feel safe.
The (debatably) dark ending aside, there lies a beauty in the underlying message of the play: that we have the power to shape our own destiny.
“Women who are living in a very sexist society are taking action and carving out their own skazki, making their own stories,” Owens said.
“Recognize when you start being the star of your own story,” Draper added.
The messages behind The Fairytale Lives of Russian Girls may sound trite, but its bizarrely outlandish delivery is certainly difficult to forget. People have the tendency to make sense of their lives and justify, excuse and empower themselves with fairytales. This play, in its strange blend of mysticism and realism, is no exception.
Magic Meets Russian Reality
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