Virtual Play/Actual Breakthrough : State vs. Natasha Banina

Artists can create under nearly any circumstance.  Still, the constraints facing them these last few months have pushed them to their limit.  Given the rigidity of its standard model, the theater community has had an especially hard time adapting to the limitations Covid has imposed on it.  Necessity is demanding new ways of thinking about what a play can look like and new approaches to the way they’re composed and told.  When someone manages to accomplish such a feat, not just competently, but brilliantly; we’ve landed in the world of breakthrough. State vs. Natasha Banina has done just that.

Its official description is almost intimidating.  Billed as “a newly conceived live Zoom interactive theater art experiment”, the work is merely what good theater should be; a simple human story told with, in this case, heartbreaking truth. 

Igor Golyak, as they play’s director, can slide in at this point and take a bow for being the visionary who mastered the challenge of combining live acting and visual and sound effects to “recreate the community experience for the theatergoer”.  The way the acting and the special effects blend together in State vs. Natasha Banina was like watching revelations blossom.  But it was the achievement of designing an experience that could draw an audience in to the point that they become invested in this character’s fate that proves most remarkable.  All done with one actor, two cameras, lights and a tiny, bare 6’ x 6’ space for a stage. 

Arlekin Players, a small theater company in Needham, Mass. just outside of Boston, produced and performed this compact phenomenon.  A company made up of immigrants, part of their mission is to rattle notions of nationality and emphasize “common themes that unite us all”. State vs Natasha Banina can count itself the perfect poster child to embody those noble goals.

Adapted from a Russian play by a Russian playwright, using a Russian-American actress with a Russian accent, the story about a 16-year-old girl growing up in rough circumstances who finds herself on trial for manslaughter has similar real life examples all over the world.  Moscow might as well be Chicago or Hong Kong or Rio.  Everywhere there are those who’ve been left out or pushed to the margins. And Natasha, whose mother was killed by her pimp when Natasha was a toddler, is one of those.  One thing though that our station in life does not preclude is our ability to dream; to aspire to a better life.   For her that better life comes with love.  Or as Natasha would specify, “real love”.

To add suspense to the drama, the audience has no idea what crime Natasha’s accused of until the very end.   Up to that point, it seems as if she could very possibly find herself the victim of some heinous act.  We spend most of the hour finding out who she is.  But before that, those who’ve constructed State have asked the audience, via a fast-moving survey, a few pointed questions about what makes them tick.  Some of the questions are benign.  Others make you look inward and peer into places you may not have looked in a long time.  It’s all relevant to the play’s conclusion and how you, as an eventual member of Natasha’s jury, will rule on how she will spend the rest of her fictional life.

We consider how brazenly she wears her hard shell of armor and we marvel at how she sounds when she drops her defenses and morphs into a typical teenage girl who dreams of a prince charming who’ll whisk her away to paradise.  When you grow up in a world where aggression is the ticket to survival and you think, however irrationally, that you’ve got a shot at that fantasy; your anger can lead you to a very grotesque place when you feel someone is blocking your happiness. 

Darya Denisova is a splendid actor who fills the character of Natasha with a hope so potent you wish there was some way her fantasies could come true.  In the talk back after the play, Denisova confessed to not feeling limited by the absence of a live audience at the production.  Having a sense of the 200 people on the other side of the cameras’ red lights energized her and provided the stimulation to fuel a superb performance.

It was also during the talk back that the director, Mr. Golyak, made a startling point.  The American model of theater is different from the European model.  In Europe, directors use the text of a play to make something new.  They have the license to sail in uncharted directions. That certainly must be one reason why State vs. Natasha Banina stands with such distinction.  It overflows with so much vibrant imagination that its pioneering.   

Extended to July 12^th, all performances are free and Zoom registration is required.  Donations are requested which will be used to support Covid-19 Emergency Relief and The Actors Fund.  Additional information can be found at https://www.arlekinplayers.com/.