Margin Notes: (beyond) Doomsday Scrolling

(beyond) Doomsday Scrolling

Seen on: Thursday, 2/16/22.
My grade: feels very much like a work in progress

Photo by Jarrett Robertson.

Plot and Background

Refugees across time and place gather in an abandoned theater space, connecting through their trauma and their will to survive. Representing the countries of Ukraine, Poland, Iceland, Georgia, Moldova, Russia, Scotland, Italy, Cuba, and the US, (beyond) Doomsday Scrolling seeks to connect the current crisis for Ukranians to crises of both the near and distant past, through a liminal moment of rest for these people on the run. AnomalousCo is a "predominantly queer-woman-led, feminist, transdisciplinary performance collective" presenting this work devised by its company of performers.

What I Knew Beforehand

Loosely the premise of refugee women in a devised theatrical space. I tried not to read too much more than that, so I could go in and be surprised.

Thoughts:

Sometimes singly, sometimes in pairs, the refugees find their way to an abandoned theater, to a bunker space within that theater. At first huddled in separate corners, they start to come together, communicating even as they have no common language, to construct the space to tell the stories that must be told. It is not Noah's Ark (though it is, a little), it is not the Tower of Babel (though it is, a little), but it somehow something both ancient and modern, their need to bear witness to what they have seen and survived. Periodically an air raid siren will sound (stunningly performed merely with the actors' voices and a violin) and the refugees will retreat to huddled positions, but often they are bolder, singing their anger, airing their grief, guarding the precious few belongings and memories they still carry.

There are some strong ideas here, but the piece feels very early in its development, as it has not yet cohered into one driving unifying push. Some sequences are staggering, like Ylfa's speech about the city she lost, the birth-to-orphanage pipeline, or the farewell phone calls; others are either confusingly executed or aurally upstaged by activity elsewhere in the space. Even when I don't understand the language being spoken, I want to be able to hear the person speaking as the dominant sound, not wonder whether I should be paying more attention to the laundry being washed, or a squabble over supplies. Quiet intimacy still needs to be audible to be effective.

I think this piece needs further development to reach its true potential; right now it feels more like a workshop for the people within it than a performance for the audience watching. I hope in future they can also expand their population a bit: right now the cast and refugee stories being explored are primarily European, with only one representative from Cuba, and an acknowledgement of both the Syrian crisis and the border between the US and Mexico. I find myself wondering where are the Tutsis, the North Koreans, the Pakistani? To be clear, I think these are good questions to ask. I want this group to keep exploring the unfortunate universality of the refugee with a wider representation.

***

Running: Now playing at HERE Arts (AnomalousCo theatre collective) - Opening: February 16, 2023. Closing: February 26, 2023.
Category: play with music
Length: 1 hours, 50 minutes, no intermission.

Creative Team

Playwright: devised by the company, with additional text from transcripts from UN Security Council debates, original text by Jeremy Goren, excerpts from Evgenia Belorusetz, Ludmila Khersonskaya, Anna Swirszczynska, Anna Murlykina, Nighean Fhir na Rèilig, Màiri Mhòr nan Òran, Bertolt Brecht, and Eurpides.
Musicians: Lesya Verba, Alex Alabin, Ylfa Edelstein, Savanna Sinéad Kenny.
Director: Kathryn Mederos Syssoyeva with Jeremy Goren and Diana Zhdanova
Designers:  Adriana Camila Gonzalez (Lighting), Lu Li and Orian Assayag (Dramaturgy), Erika Bracy (Production Stage Manager).

Cast: Monica Blaze Leavitt (US), Simona DeFeo (Italy), Ylfa Edelstein (Iceland), Claudia Godi (Italy), Jeremy Goren (US), Savanna Sinéad Kenny (Scotland), Eka Kukhianidze (Georgia), Wilemina Olivia-Garcia (Cuba), Alina Mihailevschi (Moldova), Kathryn Mederos Syssoyeva (US), Lesya Verba (Ukraine), Weronika Wozniak (Poland), Diana Zhdanova (Russia).

The cast of (beyond) Doomsday Scrolling. Photo by Jarrett Robertson.