The Last Word @ Marylebone Theatre - Review
A bold and experimental assemblage of women's resistance in contemporary Russia. ★★★★
At Marylebone Theatre until 21st September.
Tickets from £20.
Rating: ★★★★
The Last Word is a performance that teeters between theatre, contemporary dance, and protest speech. This is not a light fun play, it’s a grim and powerful reminder of the reality of the world we live in. The script is entirely made up of the final statements of Russian women as they were sentenced for acts of resistance against Putin’s brutal regime, and accompanied by subtle original music (Vladimir Rannev) and pre-existing poetry.
Interestingly, the narrative arc is somewhat in the background. While the female lead (Alisa Khazanova) powerfully repeats each set of last words in a variety of styles and settings, a baby is growing into a man through the medium of highly physical interpretive dance. Ivan Ivashkin is hard to look away from, his performance is stunningly raw, consistently gripping and often unnerving. The pair interact on stage without words, starting with blood being cleaned from his near naked body, and ending with him uniformed as a symbol of state violence. It is a powerful representation of mothers in patriachy raising sons who will oppress them. The post-show Q&A highlighted some visual references to Christ that I noticed in hindsight but not while watching- possibly my flaw, possibly a sign that this is not yet fine-tuned for people who do not share the team’s cultural context.
The staging and AV (Oleg Mikhailov; Alex Musgrave) go hand-in-hand, and are stunning. There is a transparent screen between us and the performers where words and video are projected, from live video of the performers from above to a heartbreaking ending where nearly a hundred names of female political prisoners are displayed in silence. This greatly increases the sensory intensity of the performance, and effectively rams home that this is not historic, these are women- in some cases- currently imprisoned. It does occasionally distract - when white-on-white makes text unreadable, or when the surtitles do not match the performer’s exact spoken words (both in English), but overall is an excellent choice.
The Last Word is deeply emotive, at parts will bring you to tears, especially when it touches on children and motherhood. You will leave the theatre feeling angry and powerless, this is a piece of powerful, truthful, resistance against the Putin regime.
You might also like:
Experimental AV:
21st Century politics:
