NEW YORK, July 7 – The human condition of gays in contemporary Russia mirrors life in a phantasmagoric insane asylum. That's the view of a new play, "That Queer Blind Silence" (www.thatqueerblindsilence.com) by émigré playwright Sophia Romma. Her political farce, written in English but in the style of Russian Expressionism, depicts the ordeals of a fictional figure skater whose character was inspired partly by the life and career of bronze medalist Johnny Weir. Underground International Voices of Theatre, in association with The O'Neill Film and Theatrical Foundation, will present the play's world premiere run August 5 to 23 at 13th Street Repertory Company, 50 West 13th Street, NYC, directed by John Beshaw-Farrell. Ten percent of ticket sales will be donated to Underground International Voices of Theatre to support that organization's efforts for equal rights of the LGBTQ community in the Russian Federation.
During the buildup to the 2014 Sochi Olympics, gay and lesbian life in Russia was rocked by the passage of a law against the promotion of "non-traditional sexual relations." While Olympic Sponsors and western statesmen cried out, harassment and violence against gays worsened. Threatening innuendos were spread in leaflets stating that prison and fines would be the punishment of deviants from the sexual norm.
Homosexuality had been decriminalized in Russia in 1993, however, to Russian émigré Sophia Romma, herself an accomplished figure skater, the change in Russia's recent political landscape suggested a certain regression into delusional psychopathology, which she paints in this play. It is an absurd, outrageous, macabre tale in which a fictitious gold medalist in figure skating is stripped of his honor and exiled to an asylum in Siberia, where the head psychiatrist, a lascivious sex-nik and mistress of Vladimir Putin, reforms homosexuals through spiritual cleansing and ludicrous soul-purging psychiatric tactics.
Romma's skater evokes the nonconformance of figure skater Johnny Weir, the 2008 World bronze medalist and three-time U.S. national champion, whose sexual orientation was a source of controversy during and after the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. The protagonist Olympic figure-skater of the play, Szimon Pedro, known as the "Ice Oracle," had been surviving and passing by as a heterosexual pretender. However, when he achieves his life's goal of winning the coveted Gold Medal at the Sochi Olympics, his western thinking and "individual expression" become suddenly corrosive of traditional values, demographic trends—even posing a serious threat to the safety of children. Subsequently taking the gold, Szimon is locked up among prisoners seen and unseen: the computer analyst and whistleblower Edward Snowden, a Russian lesbian feminist dissident journalist named Masha Guessin' (based on the real Masha Gessen), and the ghost of the actor/singer/social activist Paul Robeson. Szimon is pressured to rat out his gay athlete friends and subjected to electro-shock therapy, pseudoscientific libido enhancement and bizarre seduction. Can he with-stand the pressure and earn heavenly redemption, or will he forever wear his gold medal as an albatross of bigotry around his neck?
The literary style of the play is courageous and unapologetic staccato verse. It chillingly reveals the angst and paranoia which are forced upon free-thinkers and ethnic minorities of contemporary Russia as a result of Putin's opposition to western influences and his immoral annexation of Crimea. The play would be a harmless, perverse delusion if it were not so chillingly true of the monomania and tyranny raging like a conflagration in contemporary Russia.
Director John Beshaw Farrell explains that thematically, the asylum in the play symbolizes Russia herself, maddened by her own lost grandeur: Orthodox, Imperial and Soviet. The inmates have all been useful idiots in advancing dishonest propaganda. The consequence of being betrayed by what they thought were their virtues has left them all damaged, unfit for any other life but that of a madhouse.
Playwright Sophia Romma adds, "In some ways, Russia's assault on LGBT rights is simply an opposition to American hubris and western concepts of individualism that are foreign to the Russian way of life. Various ethnic minorities threaten the Russian government, as do liberated thinkers, free spirits, nonconventional artists, athletes and reporters who openly criticize the current regime." She continues, "It's not just LGBT activists who give Russia the heebie-jeebies. A soul has no true rights due to the indelible fact that the law of Mother Russia abides. The country is striving for liberation but bogged down by its repression of break-through individualism deemed hazardous to the country."
The play is choreographed by Leslie Dockery. Set design is by Gregory Okshteyn. Costume design is by Marina Abramcyk. Music is by Michael Bulychev-Okser. Theme music for "Paul Robeson" is composed by Otis Cotton. Incidental music is performed live by "Manana" from Armenia. The actors are Alice Bahlke, *Walter Krochmal, *Grant Morenz, *Tommie Thompson, Gavin Rohrer, Anna Fishbeyn, Marina Levinson and *Otis Cotton.
*The Actors appear through the courtesy of the Actors’ Equity Association.
ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT
Sophia Romma emigrated with her parents from Russia as a child. Her mother is from Ukraine and her father was born in Romania. Her birth name, Murashkovsky, is Polish but she officially changed it "because nobody could pronounce it and the teachers called me Marsha Kowalski in school." Out of sheer reverence, Sophia appropriated the pen name of Romma to pay homage to her father's mother, who was of Gypsy ancestry. Sophia is a resident playwright of The Mayakovsky Academic Art Theatre of Moscow, where the name Quantum Verse was coined to describe her literary style. The name derives from the question "How real is the universe?" and the notion that it may contain parallel dialogues, a simple subtle one and a metaphysical one.
Romma received her MFA at New York University and her Ph.D. from the prestigious Maxim Gorky Literature Institute in Moscow. In 2017, she graduated from Fordham University School of Law with her Masters of Law in International Human Rights Law and Justice. One of her monumental theatre productions, "Cabaret Émigré" (2012) interpreted the soul and hardships of assimilation of the émigré with Quantum Verse. Jerry Tallmer of The Villager wrote that “Sex and politics intermingle at Romma’s ‘Cabaret’ as the playwright crafts crazy/erratic/erotic American vernacular.” Her "With Aaron's Arms Around Me and The Mire" (2010), two one-acts on the theme of intolerance, were produced by the Negro Ensemble Company at the Cherry Lane and played to appreciative critics and audiences. The New York Times (Andy Webster) wrote, "Each playlet takes a refreshing, almost sideways approach to the subject of ethnic tension." The review had particular praise for "The Mire," where a humorless lieutenant having served in Iraq, is skillfully undone by a young filmmaker named Svetlana, "who speaks in effervescent wordplay artfully derived from Chekhov, and [the Lieutenant] is ensnared in her enchantments. So is the audience."
Romma had three productions directed by Colonel Leslie Lee at La MaMa Experimental Theater: "Love, in the Eyes of Hope, Dies Last," "Coyote, Take Me There!" and "Defenses of Prague." Her other plays include "Shoot them in the Cornfields," "The Past is Still Ahead" (about exiled bi-sexual Soviet poet Marina Tsvetaeva, which premiered in Seoul, South Korea in November, 2015 to raving reviews), "Absolute Clarity" at Players Theatre and "Carte Blanche” which ran at Polaris North Collective and at the Midtown March Madness International Theatre Festival.
She was author of the film "Poor Liza," directed by Slava Tsukerman ("Liquid Sky") starring three-time Golden Globe and Emmy Award winning actor, Ben Gazzara, Obie, Emmy and Academy Award winning actress, Lee Grant and international Slovak superstar, Barbora Bobulova. The art-house drama phantasma won the Grand Prix Garnet Bracelet for best screenplay at the Gatchena Literature and Film Festival in St. Petersburg in 2001. In 2005, her anthology of poetry, "God and My Good" was published by the Gorky Literature Institute. In 2006, her collection of poems, "Garden of the Avant-garde," was published by Noble House, United Kingdom.
Sophia Romma is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America, a member of the League of Professional Women in Theatre (where she is chair of the International Committee) and President of the International Centre for Women Playwrights. She has been Literary Manager of the Negro Ensemble Company and currently serves as Producing Artistic Director of The O’Neill Film and Theatrical Foundation, which is committed to the plight of gender parity in both the theater and film industries (www.theoneillfilmandtheatricalfoundation.com). For more complete info please view: www.thatqueerblindsilence.com/main.htm#author.
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR
John Beshaw-Farrell began working in theater as a protégé to actress Geraldine Fitzgerald when he joined her esteemed Everyman Company over forty-five years ago. In 1981, Farrell immigrated to Ireland where he became a leading figure in that country’s artistic community, though he probably remains most identifiable from his long run (nineteen years) as sidekick to Irish broadcaster Gerry Ryan. Farrell won In Dublin Magazine's Best Production award for his staging of "Twelfth Night" and "A Midsummer Night's Dream." He was director of Dublin’s first Fringe Theatre Festival, an active Board Member of the Project Arts Centre and was, for several years, Director of Ireland's largest Arts Center, The Garter Lane in Waterford. Since returning to New York about five years ago, he has developed a one-man show about Brooklyn poet Walt Whitman, an on-going memoir/performance piece named "Three Lies About Brooklyn." Most recently, Mr. Farrell directed Sophia Romma's short play, "Carte Blanche," at the Midtown International March Madness Play Festival.
ABOUT THE VENUE
13th Street Repertory Theater, the venue for this three-week run, is the tiny landmark theater on W. 13th Street known as the “gem” of Greenwich Village and home of the longest-running OOB show, "Line" by Israel Horowitz. The theater has presented traditional plays for 42 years under its founder and artistic director, Edith O'Hara, and is now bursting with creative energy since the arrival last fall of its new Artistic Director, Susan Merson, who has renovated the place and is refashioning it into a community-based center for artists of diverse disciplines, presenting music, poetry, photography, painting and plays written by women.
RELATED EVENT—ART EXHIBITION
An exhibition of original artworks by Inna Bodner, an artist, scenic and set-designer for the theater, entitled "Ukrainian Guardians of Feminist Avant-garde," curated by Heidi Russell, will be held from August 1 to 23 in the 13th Street Repertory Company's theater lobby.
On Sunday, August 9, from 4:30 to 6:45 PM, the exhibition's opening will be celebrated with a catered reception of Ukrainian cuisine, Uzbek delights and champagne. Ms. Bodner was a long-time colleague and creative collaborator of playwright Sophia Romma, who will present a brief discussion on Bodner's prolific life in theater and in art and on their successful artistic collaboration. Heidi Russell will also hold a short Q and A session pertaining to the selection of artworks chosen for this honorary exhibition.
Ms. Bodner passed away in August of 2011 from breast cancer at the age of 43. She had 350 artworks in private collections in Ukraine at the time of her death, including 200 works on paper. Donations will be accepted to help preserve Ms. Bodner's artistic legacy with proceeds given to breast cancer research. The public is invited to peruse her oeuvre at http://bodner.sitetokeep.com/fine-art/paintings-new. For more information or for arranging a personal viewing with the curator, contact: Heidi Russell at heidi.womenartsalon@gmail.com.
CRITICS ARE INVITED to "That Queer Blind Silence" on or after August 9.
PHOTOS ARE AVAILABLE at www.jsnyc.com.