Review: Stalin’s Master Class

Location	Odyssey Theater, Los Angeles, CA
Date of Performance	June 2, 2024
Language(s)	English
Photos by Jenny Graham	Amanda L. Andrei

Reviewed by  Amanda L. Andrei

A kick to a cane and a man falls to his knees. A command to sing and fear fills the singers’ eyes. These small cruelties inhabit the spacious room of Stalin’s Master Class as the full terror of the regime stays subdued. 

The lion’s share of danger resides with the historical figure of Josef Stalin, the Georgian dictator responsible for the deaths of millions across Eastern Europe as he consolidated power into the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR or Soviet Union), a world superpower from 1922 to 1991. By the time this play was written in 1984 by British playwright David Pownall, the dictator had been dead for thirty years, the Soviet Union was entering an era of decline, and Cold War tension ran high with nuclear threat.

Odyssey Theatre’s restaging of this satirical drama is a fascinating choice for 2024, as the memory of Stalin has faded, but global concerns over authoritarianism and populism remain high. 

Based on events from a musician’s conference in January 1948 at the Kremlin, where Secretary of the Communist Party Andrei Zhdanov summoned musicians and music critics to deride their aesthetics and adherence to formalism, Stalin’s Master Class extends and fictionalizes the scenario further. Zhdanov (John Kayton) invites two composers, Dmitri Shostakovich (Randy Lowell) and Sergei Prokofiev (Jan Monroe), to a private audience with Stalin (Ilia Volok) at the Kremlin. And an invitation from an autocrat is never just an invitation. 

In this case, the invitation meanders between philosophizing about the relationships between high and folk art, playing piano under threat, and eventually forcing a nightmarish creative jam session in an attempt to create a new Soviet culture. Director Ron Sossi finds the comic absurdist moments amidst the political palaver, revealing the true-to-life incongruity of regimes bent on hammering the arts into their agendas–and the awkward and soul-crushing failures that result. Dark crimson and iron reds in the plush furniture, sizable curtains, and a priceless icon (scenic designer Pete Hickok and prop designer Jenine Macdonald) likewise reflect the tension of an authority striving to maintain social realism while tempted by the bourgeoisie and royal taste. 

John Kayton’s Zhdanov lives in this world of social realism and pragmatism, radiating his disgust with the composers in every shot of vodka he takes. Randy Lowell (as Dmitri Shostakovich) and Jan Munroe (as Sergei Prokofiev) portray artists under pressure with rapt silences and careful rebuttals, aware that they could be exiled at any moment. Relief blooms in the room when any of them sit at the piano to play—musical direction by Nisha Sujatha Arunasalam transforms their abstract discussions into emotion when they strike the keys.

It’s also noteworthy that offstage, Arunasalam plays the majority of the songs beautifully (alternating with pianist Michael Redfield, and with Lowell gracefully playing the Shostakovich sections). 

The standout of this performance is Ilia Volok as Stalin. Humanizing a dictator is tricky territory, as it runs the risk of absolving a ruler of past atrocities that still haunt people and nations in the present. With an erratic mix of warmth, aggression, and stillness, Volok masterfully inhabits the despot with the cunningness and unpredictability of a coiled tiger, ready to strike the musicians at any moment. Neither absolved nor indicted, Volok’s Stalin—even in his most sympathetic moments—serves as a cruel and capricious symbol brought to life. 

If only Pownall had written the musicians with more fear injected into them. Their trepidation remains mostly interior, save for an odd plot point where Shostakovich goes to a side bathroom and wills himself aloud to survive—then returns into the main room and uncharacteristically picks up the icon that had previously been mocked.

The imbalance of power—and the means of demonstrating it mostly through conversation—eases the sense of danger and real violence that the dictator could inflict upon the composers. Additionally, while it doesn’t happen often, some of the actors’ Eastern European accents slip into American ones, breaking the illusion of their characters. During intermission, and as I left the theater, I heard slivers of conversation about Putin, Ukraine, and world wars. It’s not merely Cold War shadows that still haunt us–It’s the ghosts of the current war. And as long as history keeps repeating itself, it seems that Stalin’s Master Class will keep enrolling.

Review: Trio. For the beauty of it

Location	Goose on a String Theatre / Provazek hall in Brno, Czech Republic
Date of Performance	May 23, 2024
Language(s)	English, French, and Spanish
Photos by Ivo Dvořák	Alex Mugler

Reviewed by  Amanda L. Andrei

Poisson. Head bob. Poisson. Head bob. Je suis. Hand-chest. Je suis. Hand-chest. 

In a simple rhythm, a pair of dancers build gestural language: one speaks into a microphone far downstage, almost in the audience, and the other waits in the center, associating a body motion with the spoken word. As “poisson” (French for “fish”) becomes a dip of the head, other words in French and English follow suit throughout Trio. For the beauty of it. The three dancers of the transnational company La Fleur use spoken language only to transcend speech, all while deftly unveiling their creative process to the audience and celebrating their heritage dance styles. 

Director Monika Gintersdorfer and choreographer Franck Edmond Yao, both co-founders of La Fleur, conjure an ingenious space for each dancer to shine individually as well as an ensemble.

The Ivorian choreographer and dancer Ordinateur rises first with coupé-décalé, a style of dance and music originating from the Ivorian diaspora in Paris in the early 2000s. He vibrates with atomic essence, the repetition and speed of his steps so simple and precise that the effect is trancelike. Speaking in French, the dancer also tells us that in Côte d’Ivoire, the slang for this dance is “roukasskass,” a word both crunchy and sibilant that feels in line with the swift drumbeats and Ordinateur’s footsteps. 

Carlos Gabriel Martínez Veláquez shakes us into cumbia sonidera, a Mexican subgenre of cumbia, a DJ-influenced music and dance style with roots in Latin American and African traditions. To the sounds of salsa guitar licks with an electronica touch, Veláquez spins and quakes with abandon, drawing in the other dancers.

Switching between English and Spanish, the dancer also generously shares meanings of the symbols behind his cultural and artistic influences. Most striking is the idea of the snake, which he tells the audience, “The snake helps us do the right thing in the right moment in the right mode.” In the midst of such festivities, it’s a beautiful reflective moment of how a dancer intuits their next move, how the animal and the divine are present as a source of grace, awareness, and eroticism. 

Repping the New York vogue and ballroom scene, Alex Mugler shares with us the dance style developed by queer black and Latine folks of color from the 1960s and onwards in Harlem. With confidence and poise, Mugler’s hands and arms swoop, dive, and flourish before he leaps to the floor, nimbly twisting and posing to loud cheers.

His performance of a song about “kiki”—a slang term from ballroom culture that can refer to the giddiness of a friends’ gossip circle—provides a ticklish moment with a deeper meaning. As the three dancers weave in and out of each other’s space, reciting opposites such as “up, down, right, left,” Mugler sings variations of “let’s have a kiki.” It’s as breezy and fun as spilling tea tends to be, but it also serves as a subtle approach to breaking binaries: we can interrupt our notions of dualism and black-and-white thinking with the frivolity and mercurialness, letting us view the world with more fun and ease. 

Towards the end of the hour, Mugler leads Ordinateur and Veláquez in a ballroom dance-off, telling us that we get to judge their skills. It’s another act of generosity to invite us into this world, and we roar with praise for the dancers—who then invite us onstage to romp and whirl with them. And when dancers this skillful encourage you to play and move with them, there’s no hesitation. You dance for the beauty of it.  

More information about the Theatre World Brno 2024 Festival (May 17-28) is available here.

Review: The Ratcatcher

Location	Radost Theatre in Brno, Czech Republic
Date of Performance	May 22, 2024
Language	Czech with English language surtitles
Photo by Jakub Jíra	Jiří Skovajsa as Pied Piper.

Reviewed by  Amanda L. Andrei

Once upon a time, there was a small German town named Hamelin. When it became plagued by rats, the mayor sought to eliminate the pests, using cats, traps, and poison. Naturally, when these methods didn’t work, he called in the heavyweight hotshot: a skull-faced Mickey Mouse toting an empty sack and playing a mean recorder. 

That’s The Ratcatcher, a clever and intricate adaptation of the Pied Piper fairytale for ages 12 and up, produced by Divadlo Radost in cooperation with the French puppet company, Les Antliaclastes. Performed at the Theatre World Brno Festival, the story expands upon the original folktale with kooky, lush detail and a modern twist. 

Early on, the rats emerge from a massive dollhouse-like structure that doubles as the Hamelin neighborhood (designed by Patrick Sims, also director and puppeteer). Each compartment resembles a shadow box: some with miniature furniture, some with musical instruments, some simply plain with wallpaper or a human doll. There’s even a toilet with a cross-section of piping running down the side. The set’s playfulness contrasts against the sinister nature of a huge disease-ridden flea (played by Radim Sasínek) and the crafty mayor (Václav Vítek), each donning superb masks designed by Josephine Biereye. 

But their sinister nature pales in comparison to the creepiness of the pied piper (Jiří Skovajsa), emanating cutthroat business ideals and greed. In the guise of the notorious Mouse and the specter of Death, he wears a jingling coat of suit ties and seduces the rats (and later, the children) with his music until they plop into his cloth sack and the musical mercenary hopes coins will fill his hand. On their way to death? As a modern fairytale crustacean would croon, “They in for a worser fate.”

As the friendly Rat Girl (Stanislava Havelková) cracks open the house-town with a wooden spoon, the German legend catapults into the satirical sci-fi world of Hamelin Laboratories, where the traitorous mayor—now referred to as Research Director—conducts bizarre experiments on rats and humans.

The exaggerated nature of the puppets (including a robotic feline and a chatty cheese wedge) keep the circumstances comic and cartoonish. Whereas older endings of the narrative focused on disability, death, or despair, Les Antliaclastes and Divadlo Radost take anxieties about the future and present them in a style that is refreshingly weird, thanks to its mashup of fairytale and mad science gone corporate.

There are a few opportunities for growth in the show. For instance, the bit of one rat turning rockstar is so amusing that it deserves an encore. And when the masked Rat Girl plays with unclothed baby dolls from a carriage, it’s unclear if they’re meant to represent living children or everyday toys, making it difficult to establish a sense of attachment for the figurines or their connections to the kidnapped children. These are minor details in an otherwise sensory-rich production and one aimed at adolescents. 

The concept could go the direction of George Orwell’s Animal Farm if the company so desired, transforming into a sharp fable about current economic and social conditions. But with a traditional tale already so piercingly macabre, and a Hamelin house-town-lab so lavishly constructed, sharp edges aren’t necessary to enhance the show’s quaint delight. Skeleton Mickey is plenty. 

More information about the Theatre World Brno 2024 Festival (May 17-28) is available here.