Witness Onstage: Documentary Theatre in Twenty-First-Century Russia by Molly Flynn (review)
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The appearance of this book is a welcome addition to available literature in English about the dynamic theatre scene in Russia. Witness Onstage effectively contextualizes the rise of Russian verbatim theatre. Although the actual dates of detailed analysis range from 2008 to 2012, rendering Flynn’s title overly broad, her chosen period is nonetheless representative of the most significant developments in the Russian documentary movement, including the hugely important Teatr.doc. Flynn also provides excellent contextualization for both the decades preceding her study as well as major theatrical events that transpired after the 2012 cutoff. Her work is further enriched by her ability to consider her objects not only as a theatrical critic, but also as a performer in one of the works she analyzes.
Flynn’s detailed and readable introduction outlines her argument that documentary theatre in Russia responded to what she terms “four core cultural tensions”: namely, “questions about the evidentiary status of documents, the performance of justice, the sincerity of testimony, and the complexities of Russia’s difficult relationship to its twentieth-century past” (22). In addition to this main thesis, Flynn also raises the concept of anamnesis, defined as a form of commemorative practice. She considers how modern Russian documentary theatre functions as commemorative in three distinct ways: 1) as a means for personalized reflection on what has occurred, the way a doctor gains an oral history in order to prepare a diagnosis; 2) as a means by which actors (reenactors) and audience members can collectively remember and relearn about a momentous event; and 3) as a process of recreation through memory, [End Page 268] the way participants in a liturgy embody a remembered act in order to make it present. This tripartite framework is one of the most exciting aspects of the monograph.
After this intellectually rigorous introduction, which skillfully provides a broad context from the beginning of the twentieth century up to the present, chapter 1 places documentary theatre in Russia within both international and national contexts, and it outlines the book’s central arguments pertaining to the use of documents and the social function of memory. Flynn maps a trajectory from historical antecedents to contemporary theatrical movements such as New Russian Drama from the first decade of this century, demonstrating her deep familiarity with major theatre-makers of this time period. From the well-written and balanced introduction and contextualization of chapter 1, the author turns to individual productions. Here, the book loses a bit of focus as Flynn narrows in on five specific productions for in-depth analyses. The productions are representative of specific features relating to her opening thesis regarding the use of documents, memory, and anamnesis, but Flynn does not adequately justify the choice of these specific productions from among the range of possible examples that use documentary and verbatim techniques to varying degrees. The descriptions of the individual productions are detailed, but they often stray from the central arguments of their chapters, which are made more unwieldy by a surprising number of tangents. The result is an unresolved tension between survey and argument. That said, every one of Flynn’s analyses offers great insights into the plays and their production styles. Further, her thorough knowledge of the most prominent Russian theatre critics such as Pavel Rudnev and Marina Davydova ensures that her analysis is not hampered by an Anglocentric point of view.
Chapter 2 begins with a description and analysis of The Legacy of Silence (Gruz molchaniia), the production in which Flynn played the role of Gerda for a year and a half. This work focuses on how the children of Nazis dealt with their parents’ legacies. The description of the production is then linked to the work done by Memorial, an international NGO that preserves remembrances of the victims of Stalinist repression. A second play, Second Act. Grandchildren., looks at the way that Russian grandchildren thought about their grandparents working in the NKVD and the KGB. Flynn...
