Devised and performed by Belarus Free Theatre
Directed by Nicolai Khalezin and Natalia Kaliada
With Maria Alyokhina from Pussy Riot

Where do you belong when your government suppresses your basic right to expression? What do you do when your government imprisons you for making art? How would you survive one of the most brutal prison systems in the world?

“I think it is beautiful, what he did. I think he is brave.” That was Maria Alyokhina’s response during the interview section of the new performance piece by Belarus Free Theatre’s Burning Doors. It was a question posed to her by an audience member regarding Colin Kaepernick’s kneeling during the national anthem and the broiling national debate created in the aftermath. The audience, on the night I attended the performance, burst into spontaneous applause — another amazing moment in a series of amazing moments in the moving, brilliant, sometimes terrifying, sometimes devastating new work at La MaMa. Yes, I too believe that Kaepernick was brave for what he did, but compared to what? Maria Alyokhina herself was incarcerated in Russia for two years for performing with her band Pussy Riot in a church in Moscow. Two years. It’s inconceivable, to us. So, I must ask you, dear reader, how do I get you to buy a ticket to Burning Doors? The very fact that you can read these words means that you don’t suffer very much. You are concerned, of course, we all are so very concerned. But are we brave? No. Belarus Free Theatre Company is brave, Alyokhina is brave, Oleg Sentsov (currently incarcerat …Read more