Pussy Riot: Riot Days
22nd February 2019
Town Hall, Auckland, New Zealand.
Review by Sarah Kidd. Photography by Chris Zwaagdyk.
Auckland Fringe Festival has once again rolled around bringing with it a plethora of events to entertain, surprise and provoke. Last night brought the politically charged creation based on the memoir of original Pussy Riot member Maria Alyokhina; Pussy Riot: Riot Days a theatre production retelling both her story and experiences leading up to and following Pussy Riot’s protest in Moscow at the Christ the Saviour Cathedral on February 21st, 2012.
Wellington’s own anarchopunk band Unsanitary Napkin opened the evening’s proceedings, the three piece of Hannah Salmon, Ben Knight and Rupert Hunter delivering a musically brutal set with vocals that tore through the very senses. Salmon’s singing style has always been impressive, raw and emotive it demands attention. However, in between songs, Salmon reverts to a rather more timorous character, mumbling barely audible comments or song titles into the mic.
While this is not to be admonished – her demeanour denoting her obvious humility despite her enormous talent – when performing songs such as ‘Patriarchal Boner’ from their latest album Orgasmic Capitalism which is a collection of songs written about “the absurd bullshit that’s been happening over the last few years as the dysfunctional core of heteropatriarchal capitalism continues to rot”, shout those titles out with the fervour with which you wrote them.
Short, sharp, lyrically thought-provoking and at times a little surprising (the guitar riff from Aerosmith’s ‘Sweet Emotion’ catching a few patrons off guard as it popped up in the middle of the in your face punk set) Unsanitary Napkin are compulsory listening.
Introducing the main performance, producer Alexander Cheparukhin begun by reminding the audience that Pussy Riot never were and never have been a punk band, rather a “protest-art collective” of which a small fraction made some music for the purpose of protest actions and videos. With minimal instrumentation – a small drum kit, keyboard, trumpet and a saxophone which was played by Nastya Awott of Asian Women on the Telephone – providing the live music element of the performance over a backing track, the five piece took the stage and told the [abridged] story of Riot Days, a big screen behind them providing video footage of both the events and backstory as well as subtitles for the narrative which was performed entirely in Russian.
Maria Alyokhina along with Russian actor and singer Kiryl Masheka provided the bulk of the spoken word, the other three members chiming in on key statements that punctuated the set;
anyone can be pussy riot
you can’t even imagine we exist
change the system
freedom within your cell
Footage of the original protest played out on the screen, the anxiety, the fear but more overwhelmingly the determination that the protestors held within them to carry out their actions against the orthodox churches support of the Russian President Vladimer Putin making the air within Auckland’s Town Hall hum.
The aftermath of this protest, Alyokhina’s subsequent hunting down, arrest, trial and conviction which resulted in her spending two years in a penal colony in Nizhny Novgorod was unsettling, and so it should be. Charged with ‘hooliganism’, their sentence was gratuitous; it caused uproar across the world, with many calling for their immediate release. Watching Alyokhina, at times donning the infamous balaclava alongside the rest of the members, narrate her own story, was empowering; her strength to not only carry out her actions but continue to do so to this present day despite continuous hurdles being placed in her way (she recently defied a travel ban to perform in Edinburgh last year and only received her visa to travel to New Zealand one day before flying out) one to be applauded.
Erratic dancing, the smoking of cigarettes the shock of having cold water splashed across your face courtesy of a bare-chested Masheka and a table full of water bottles were all part of last night’s performance; the imagery and story making an impression on many, one that will no doubt be a talking point for many years to come.
Some local critics have dismissed both Alyokhina and Riot Days, calling her entitled, precocious and cashing in on the events of 2012; yet those who do, do so from the comfort of their armchairs, safe in the knowledge that their criticisms and own keyboard political commentary will not see them hunted down by the politsiya. Alyokhina stood for what she believed and she paid the price; yet she continues to protest, fighting for the freedom of political prisoners such as Ilya Shakursky and Vasily Kuksov – members of the so called ‘Network’ who have been tortured during their detainment; proceeds from the sale of t-shirts at the show going towards lawyers to fight for the freedom of those who have been persecuted.
Can theatre be punk? Pussy Riot: Riot Days just proved that yes, it very much can be.
Were you there at the Town Hall for this activist punk theatre? Or have you seen Pussy Riot perform live somewhere else? Tell us about it in the comments below!
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