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The Trial That Never Was: Russian Documentary Theatre and the Pursuit of Justice
Molly Flynn
New Theatre Quarterly / Volume 30 / Issue 04 / November 2014, pp 307 - 317 DOI: 10.1017/S0266464X14000657, Published online: 21 October 2014
Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0266464X14000657
How to cite this article: Molly Flynn (2014). The Trial That Never Was: Russian Documentary Theatre and the Pursuit of Justice. New Theatre Quarterly, 30, pp 307-317 doi:10.1017/S0266464X14000657
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Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/NTQ, IP address: 131.111.184.30 on 01 Nov 2014 Molly Flynn
The Trial That Never Was: Russian Documentary Theatre and the Pursuit of Justice
Twenty-first-century Russian theatre artists have increasingly taken to using material from real-life events to explore the intricacies of injustice in the civic sphere and its connection to the country’s past. In a fifteen-year time span documentary forms have come to the forefront of Russia’s theatrical avant-garde. In this article Molly Flynn offers a close reading of one of the most politically charged productions to have emerged from Moscow’s booming documentary theatre – One Hour Eighteen: the Trial that Wasn’t but Should Have Been (2010). The play uses verbatim texts from the prison and medical staff directly involved in the final days before the murder of Russian attorney Sergei Magnitskii in 2009. Setting the piece in a theatrical courtroom, the creators of One Hour Eighteen place their work in the context of Russia’s judicial history in the previous century, during which the resemblance of trials to theatre has often been uncomfortably close. Molly Flynn is a doctoral candidate in Slavonic Studies at the University of Cambridge. She is currently completing her doctoral thesis on the history and significance of documentary theatre in twenty-first-century Russia. Key terms: One Hour Eighteen, post-Soviet performance, Sergei Magnitskii, cultural memory, verbatim theatre.
IN THE DECADE following the dissolution documentary theatre has come to the fore- of the Soviet Union, young Russian play- front of experimental theatre practice in wrights revived contemporary drama with Russia. an exploration and portrayal of everyday life The 2010 production One Hour Eighteen: in post-Soviet Russia. Their pursuit of real- the Trial that Never Was but Should Have Been istic dialogue soon found a close ally in is among the most politically charged plays verbatim theatre, as introduced to Russian to have emerged from Moscow’s thriving playwrights in a series of master classes led documentary theatre repertoire in recent by delegates from London’s Royal Court years. The play uses verbatim texts from Theatre in 1999 and 2000.1 Since that time statements, articles, and interviews to stage verbatim playwriting and documentary an imagined trial of the prison and medical methods have become integral to the staff directly involved in the days before the development of Russian theatre in Moscow death of Russian attorney Sergei Magnitskii. and around the country.2 After he had uncovered the biggest tax fraud The number of venues regularly pro- in Russian history, Sergei Magnitskii was ducing documentary work has proliferated. arrested on fabricated charges and held in Documentary plays now comprise a major government custody for over eleven months presence at all of Russia’s contemporary before he died on 16 November 2009 –eight theatre festivals. Indeed, verbatim has even days before the Russian legal limit of one come to be included in the curriculum for year’s detention without a trial. young actors and directors training at the The injustice of Magnitskii’s arrest, im- Moscow Art Theatre, usually considered the pris onment, and murder, as well as attempts most traditional professional theatre training to cover up the institutional corruption in programme. In its short fifteen-year history, the handling of his case, were the initial ntq 30:4 (november 2014) © cambridge university press doi:10.1017/S0266464X14000657 307 http://journals.cambridge.org Downloaded: 01 Nov 2014 IP address: 131.111.184.30 inspiration for playwright Elena Gremina Moscow, this article explores the significance and director Mikhail Ugarov to begin work of documentary theatre as a site for the on One Hour Eighteen, a play whose title exploration and negotiation of narratives denotes the seventy-eight minutes during from the recent past in contemporary Russia. which Magnitskii was beaten to death by an It investigates the interdependent nature of ‘emergency medical team’ who were suppo s - re-enacting the past and the performance of edly attending to his critical medical con di - justice in Russian documentary theatre and tion behind the closed doors of a prison cell. illustrates how the creators of One Hour Sergei Magnitskii was arrested in Novem- Eighteen appropriate core elements of Soviet ber 2008 for having testified against a group judicial methodology in order to address of corrupt government officials who initiated injustice and corruption in the country’s and participated in the theft of $230 million legal infrastructure. from the Russian government. He was By setting their documentary perform- arrested by the very officials he had testified ance of justice in a courtroom, the creators of against. It was clear for years from Mag- One Hour Eighteen place their work in direct nitskii’s prison diary that he had been relation to Russia’s complex judicial history, severely mistreated throughout his impris- in which the relationship between trials and onment, and the details of this abuse have theatre has, throughout the previous century, since been published in a report commis- grown uncomfortably close. sioned in 2012 by Hermitage Capital (the investment company that hired Magnitskii The Defendants are Called to the Stand as outside counsel for the case that led to his arrest).3 The report details the human rights As they enter Teatr.doc’s small basement violations that took place in Magnitskii’s black-box theatre, a space that has become a case, including repeated denial of medical creative home to many of Russia’s most soci- care and beatings by prison staff in the hour ally engaged theatre artists, each audience preceding his death. member receives a ‘briefing on the play’. Despite the international outcry from Included in the briefing are a summary of the human rights groups, no one has been held events that immediately preceded Magnit- legally responsible for Magnitskii’s death. In skii’s death, a note from director Ugarov September 2011, two doctors were dismissed about why Teatr.doc felt it was important to from the Butyrka detention centre for having create a performance on the subject, and a list failed to diagnose Magnitskii with diabetes of the play’s ‘characters’ in order of appear- and hepatitis, two illnesses he never had. In ance. The list begins with Magnitskii’s April 2012 the charges against the former mother, followed by the prison and medical prison doctor Larisa A. Litvinova were staff who were directly involved in her son’s dismissed as ‘Russia’s top investigative last days. They are each identified by name agency quietly ruled . . . that the statute of and surname, ‘so that’, Ugarov writes, ‘they limitation had run out in the case’.4 Two can come to the theatre and look at years after Magnitskii’s death, Russia’s themselves’.6 While the audience files in, the Foreign Ministry officially declared that it actors sit casually onstage, waiting, as is later was in fact Magnitskii himself who had revealed, to be called to the stand. stolen the $230 million of tax receipts from Once seated, the audience is directed by the government; and, in the summer of 2013, one of the actors to read the briefing. ‘Item Magnitskii was found posthumously guilty one’ (‘Punkt pervyi’), another announces, of this theft, thus making Vladimir Putin, in ‘Natalia Nikolaevna Magnitskaia, Mother.’ the words of legal historian Sadakat Kadri, The actress playing Magnitskii’s mother ‘the first western leader in a thousand years stands and steps to the front of the stage. She to prosecute a dead man’.5 describes the experience of going to see her Through a close analysis of the perfor- son’s body in the morgue and how she mance of One Hour Eighteen by Teatr.doc in wondered about the bruises she saw on his
308 http://journals.cambridge.org Downloaded: 01 Nov 2014 IP address: 131.111.184.30 wrists and knuckles. ‘Who was he fighting minutes before the medical team left their with?’ she asks. ‘I don’t know.’7 She proceeds ‘patient’ dead on the floor of a prison cell. to state her accusations against the govern- Feldsher emphasizes how little he knows ment officials responsible for her son’s arrest, about who Magnitskii was or what hap- the prison employees liable for his torture, pened to him that day, and spends the rest of and the medical staff accountable for his final his monologue discussing the supposed days. benefits of Samsung versus Nokia phones, She specifies each person by name, there- an absurdity that gains particular resonance by introducing the monologues to follow. when one remembers that the texts are Included in the list of defendants are Oleg verbatim. Silchenko, the head of the criminal proceed- The girl in the ambulance similarly claims ings against Magnitskii; Judge Elena she knows nothing about the case nor about Stashina, who ruled to prolong Magnitskii’s whether or not Magnitskii might have been detention and refuse his request for medical mistreated by the two officers who escorted treatment four days before the prisoner’s him in the ambulance the morning before death; and Alexandra Gauss, the doctor in his death. She responds to an unseen inter- charge of his medical treatment. locutor when she says: Each of the ten monologues that make up the text of One Hour Eighteen is presented as I have nothing to do with this. Seriously, nothing testimony. The actors speak directly to the at all. To tell the truth I don’t know why you even called me here. I never once turned around. I audience with no pretence of a fourth wall, turned on the radio, so I didn’t hear a thing. So if and in this way cast their audiences in the there’s one person who had nothing to do with it, active roles of judge, jury, and prosecutor. it’s me.8 The figures represented onstage defend their handling of the case and are quick to declare As her verbatim testimony reveals, the girl that they should in no way be held respon- appears to have no understanding of why sible for Magnitskii’s death. Each time the she is being questioned in connection with testimonies are presented, which is to say the case. She points to having turned up the each time the play is performed, the audi- volume on the radio as evidence of the fact ence is presented an opportunity to engage that she has nothing to contribute to the in the active process of judgement and to investigation, and no inside perspective on bear witness to the events under discussion. whether Magnitskii was beaten while in Two of the early monologues, for ex - transport. ample, are spoken by state employees who These two testimonies are of particular were, admittedly, only peripherally involved interest because neither of the defendants in the events that led to Magnitskii’s death. took direct action against the victim; and yet One such monologue comes from Sasha their actions, or lack of action, permitted the Feldsher, the young medical attendant at crimes that led to the prisoner’s murder. By Matrosskaia Tishina Prison. The other is including these texts in their presentation of from the girl who was sitting in the front seat evidence, the creators of One Hour Eighteen of the ambulance that drove Magnitskii, ask their audiences to consider who exactly along with two officers from the Butyrka ought to be held responsible for Magnitskii’s detention centre, back to Matrosskaia Tishina death. Such testimonies indicate how many on 16 November 2009, three hours before he people were involved, both officially and died. unofficially, in perpetuating a system of en- In his testimony, Sasha Feldsher tells the demic corruption and neglect. audience how he was told to ‘take a walk in In our consideration of the significance of the hall’ when the ‘emergency medical team’ these testimonies, however, it is important to arrived to attend to Magnitskii’s fatal medi- remember that, although Feldsher and the cal condition. Feldsher then paced up and girl in the ambulance may have spoken the down the hall for one hour and eighteen truth about what they experienced or
309 http://journals.cambridge.org Downloaded: 01 Nov 2014 IP address: 131.111.184.30 witnessed, they surely did not think about call it theatre, without at least one performer whether their words would later be called and at least one spectator there would be no upon to stand in as evidence in Teatr.doc’s theatre. ‘We can thus define theatre,’ he courtroom performance. The act of appro- wrote, ‘as that which takes place between the priating oral testimonies from absent and actor and the spectator.’11 That is to say, unsuspecting defendants calls attention to theatre is created through an exchange bet- the questionable evidentiary status of ver- ween an actor and a spectator, in the relation- batim texts as presented in documentary ship and interaction between the two. theatre. Moreover, in Russia, anxieties about In the context of the courtroom, it is as a the authenticity of legal documentation and direct result of the judge or jury’s consider- the sincerity of oral testimony are height- ation of evidence provided through testi- ened as a result of the country’s long history mony that the defendant is found either of corruption in the courtroom. By pulling guilty or not guilty. Directly, through shared texts from various published and unpub- testimony, a society uses the rituals of the lished sources provided primarily by journ- courtroom to define a code of societal ethics. alists, and proceeding to present them as Speaking and hearing testimony, whatever evidence, the creators of the play exploit the the verdict, enacts a mode of justice. If, to use suspect nature of documentation in contem- Grotowski’s model, justice is that which porary Russian culture and confront the takes place between a speaking witness and complexity of oral testimony as an instru- a listening juror, then how are we to interpret ment of justice. the ambiguity of representation in One Hour Eighteen’s ‘trial that never was’? In the absence of an official legal trial, the Testimony in Judgement and in Theatre artists of Teatr.doc collected evidence and ‘Testimony,’ Jan-Melissa Schramm writes, ‘is assembled a jury in order to carry out the a richly multivalent term.’9 Performed ‘in the judicial proceedings the Russian govern- first person by those who seek to bear wit- ment never managed to arrange. The actors ness to the role of traumatic events in the stand in for the defendants, and the audience formation of larger historical narratives’,10 members act as surrogates for the jurists. A testimony has come frequently to signify an theatre trial may not carry the legal reper- act of justice in and of itself. In the courtroom cussions of a court trial, but there is no doubt it is regarded as one of the most influential that real testimonies are given and real forms of evidence. Outside the courtroom, judgements are made. testimony means the practice of confessing The notion that justice can be constituted one’s personal and historical narratives. In through the proclamation and reception of both instances, it requires a witness (eye- testimony sheds new light on the efficacy of witness, character witness, material witness, Teatr.doc’s ‘trial that never was’ – a trial that and so on) and a body of judgement (in the is arguably enacted each time the play is courtroom this usually means a judge or jury performed. The actors of One Hour Eighteen or both). For justice to be served in the present their testimonies for judgement and juridical sense or in the historical sense, a in this way use their performance to construct testimony must be both spoken and heard. the atmosphere of a trial. In another sense, The necessity for testimony to be both One Hour Eighteen actually constructs a trial. spoken and heard is a feature the practice shares notably with the theatre. As Jerzy Reasonable Doubt: the Material Witnesses Grotowski discovered in the development of his ‘poor theatre’ model, the essential ele- As the play unfolds, the remaining testi- ments of the theatre are an actor and a monies continue to complicate the question spectator. He argued that, while one could of who, or even what, is on trial. Each of the strip away all other elements of theatrical figures called to the stand defends the performance (design, director, text) and still choices he or she made in the lead-up to
310 http://journals.cambridge.org Downloaded: 01 Nov 2014 IP address: 131.111.184.30 Magnitskii’s death. Despite the fact that these defendants are directly implicated in the crimes against Magnitskii, they deny any responsibility for the events that took place. Showing more concern for their own well being than for any idea of justice, they con- tinually point to the corruption of the system as a whole as justification for their actions. One such monologue is spoken by Dr Gauss who, after diagnosing her patient with acute pancreatitis, called the emergency medical team and then waited in her office for one hour and eighteen minutes, only returning to the cell to verify that the pris- oner had died. Here she describes the un- hygienic conditions in the prison to justify her rather aloof attitude towards her job: It’s dangerous just to be here at all. So you think all we have is a little dust floating in the air? Hepatitis. And that dirt there, under your feet? Tuberculosis. And bites? Bites, bites! A prisoner bites you, and you get HIV. We’ve had that happen. And after all that, we still make three times less than civilian doctors.12 Gauss adamantly defends her handling of the case and is one of numerous characters represented who cites her salary as a primary factor in her lack of investment in her work. The Judge in the London production of One Hour Eighteen Minutes by the Sputnik Theatre Company in Investigator Silchenko’s testimony also November 2012. Photo: Noah Birksted-Breen. addresses this issue as he blames the wealthy for Magnitskii’s death and claims that he and In another monologue, Judge Elena Stash- his colleagues in the Foreign Ministry are ina answers a series of questions that she victims of the corruption of an elite business reads from a document onstage. At first, the culture. ‘They are the ones who are guilty,’ questions appear to be completely unrelated he tells the audience. ‘Those in prison, their to the case. Questions like ‘Are you ever late friends and relatives. . . . You know, he was for a hearing?’, ‘Did your grandfather fight the lawyer of criminals. . . . You spell it “busi - in the war?’, ‘In the morning, do you have 13 nessmen” but it’s pronounced “thieves”.’ your eggs hard- or soft-boiled?’15 become Although it may seem simple enough to increasingly absurd until both the audience accuse those who are presented onstage as and the interviewee begin to realize what is guilty, the defendants’ claims are not inaccu - happening. Thus: rate in that the corruption does extend far beyond the individuals involved in this Oh, well then, thank you. I understand. But why specific case. Silchenko even implicates the all these questions? . . . You want to find out if I’m audience members when he asks them: ‘So, a human being? Well just ask me. . . . No, I’m not a human being. I’m a judge. And in the courtroom what’s your salary? And yours? Right . . . judges aren’t considered to be human beings. 14 and mine?’ As Silchenko’s text indicates, They carry out the will of the state. That’s it.16 corrupt legal and financial practices have become so deeply ingrained in contempo- Here Stashina points to one of the fundam- rary Russia life, it can be difficult to parse ental dysfunctions of Russia’s judicial sys- degrees of responsibility and com plicity. tem. As in every testimony in the play, she is
311 http://journals.cambridge.org Downloaded: 01 Nov 2014 IP address: 131.111.184.30 essentially claiming that she was simply the early twentieth century with the prolifer - doing her job, one which is undervalued, ation of Soviet mock trials directly following and that therefore she cannot be expected the 1917 Revolution. Although the use of to perform with personal commitment or a mock trials as a tool for education and propa- sense of integrity. This, it is sug gested, is a ganda was not strictly a Soviet innovation, pervasive attitude among many of Russia’s the early Soviet years saw a marked increase civil servants. Nobody involved in One Hour in judi cial performance practices. Eighteen – not the creators, not the audience, As both Julie A. Cassiday and Elizabeth A. not even the defendants themselves – are Wood note in their respective studies of trials claiming that the country’s legal practices are and drama in twentieth-century Russia, mock just. The question is not whether or not the trials became a favorite mode of propaganda system is corrupt. The question One Hour immediately following the revolution.17 Eighteen poses is rather: how can people begin Amateur mock trials were staged in every to be held responsible for such corruption? school and town centre. There were trials Teatr.doc’s pursuit of justice as staged in against farmers who resisted collectivization One Hour Eighteen is not limited to the pro- and trials against peasants who did not secution of those involved in Magnitskii’s maintain appropriate sanitary habits. Mock last days. In addition to passing judgement trials were not only meant to represent the on those represented onstage, audience ethical stance of the Communist Party; they members are also asked to re-evaluate their were performed for the express purpose of own relationship to corruption. In other reshaping the public moral consciousness. words, Gremina and Ugarov create a space As Cassiday writes, ‘The theatre and in which their audiences gain the oppor- cinema that came into public trials after the tunity to participate in a judicial process and revolution were part of a larger modernist are thereby asked to confront their own movement in which art did not merely reflect associations with the concept of justice as it or comment upon life but actually helped to has come to be defined throughout recent reform, to redirect, and ultimately to revo- Russian history. lutionize the lives of artists and spectators alike.’18 Early Soviet trial organizers believed that Burden of Proof: Soviet Trial Practices the process of judgement enacted by a trial’s The courtroom as a venue for the transmis - audience could have a genuine impact on the sion of cultural narratives has a complex beliefs and behaviours of their society. As history in twentieth-century Russia, and by Wood argues, setting their performance of justice in a courtroom the creators of One Hour Eighteen The new ‘soviet’ practices were acted out and call upon the country’s unusually intimate, enacted not so much in the conscious sense of someone ‘acting a part’ but rather in the more and occasionally lethal, association between complex sense of a parent who tells his or her judicial and theatrical practice. By tracing child to ‘act your age’. certain narrative structures and modes of spectatorship as they were developed in the Here Wood articulates a crucial distinction in early Soviet mock trials and subsequently her assessment of early Soviet theatrical transposed on to the very real prosecution practices. ‘To act a part is to act something and sometimes execution of Soviet citizens one knows to be fictional,’ she writes. ‘To act in Stalinist show trials, we observe how One one’s age is to adopt a series of behaviours Hour Eighteen incorporates elements of Soviet that one feels are appropriate and correct to judicial practice in order to raise important the situation.’19 In other words, through their questions about the nature of justice in representation of Revolutionary ideals, the twenty-first-century Russia. trial plays were intended to construct a The connection between theatre and society in which such beliefs were held. Russia’s troubled legal history dates back to By playing the roles of upstanding Soviet
312 http://journals.cambridge.org Downloaded: 01 Nov 2014 IP address: 131.111.184.30 Scenes from the London production of One Hour Eighteen Minutes by the Sputnik Theatre Company in November 2012. Photos: Noah Birksted-Breen.
313 http://journals.cambridge.org Downloaded: 01 Nov 2014 IP address: 131.111.184.30 citizens, or morally sound spectators, the performance of judicial proceedings and the participants of early Soviet mock trials were self-reflection (samokritika) such proceedings learning how to perform new modes of aimed to ‘inspire’ contributed to a major shift accepted behaviour. in the perception of what came to constitute These early amateur Soviet theatrics were notions of justice in Soviet Russia. thought to be an essential tool in the Com - The self-reflection of the early Soviet trials munist Party’s efforts to enact its socialist involved a forced prescription of right and ideal. The narrative structure of confession, wrong. The defendants, regardless of their conversion, and repentance as portrayed in crime or the evidence, were portrayed as theatrical courtrooms throughout the 1920s enemies of the state; and only through a pro- became so familiar to early Soviet audiences cess of confession, conversion, and reinteg- that it was soon seamlessly transposed on to ration into society were they able to redeem the very real prosecution of citizens through- their moral standing in the Soviet system. out the country in the 1930s. In fact, as early The details of the Magnitskii case, when as 1928 in the first Stalinist show trial, the reviewed in the context of the history of trials Shakhty affair, trial organizers applied pre- in twentieth-century Russia, bring to light an cisely this script of confession and conver- unnerving number of similarities. Although sion to the prosecution of fifty-three mining Magnitskii’s case was never actually brought engineers accused of treason and charged as to trial, his arrest, imprisonment, and mur- enemies of the state.20 der sent a very clear signal to people who Of the fifty-three accused, only sixteen might otherwise have been inclined to speak performed their confessions of admitted guilt, out against the corrupt practices of the thirteen equivocated, and the remaining Russian government. By performing the arti- twenty-four pleaded not guilty; nonetheless fice of their crafted trial, Ugarov and Gremina forty-nine were found guilty and five were consciously incorporate and reimagine the executed. The event was thought to be so theatricality of Russia’s twentieth-century effective that it was soon replicated in cities courtroom history. throughout the country, although reportedly with less finesse in the provinces.21 After see- Mock Trials and One Hour Eighteen ing the confession and repentance of ‘crimi- nals’ on trial, spectators were thought to be As in the early Soviet mock trials, One Hour less likely to condone any dissent within the Eighteen seeks to promote an analogous type ranks.22 of self-reflection. It uses the construct of the As Stalin’s show trials became more com- courtroom to raise fundamental issues of jus- mon during the 1930s, the intimate relation- tice and morality in the cultural conscious - ship between trials and theatre in Russia ness. However, whereas the self-reflection of became increasingly ominous. The court room the early Soviet trials left audiences with was not only a venue for the propaganda of acompulsory sense of moral superiority, the Bolshevik party, but also a primary Teatr.doc audiences leave the theatre with a setting for the enactment of state terror. sense of discomfort. The self-reflection of In the case of mock trials, the represen- early Soviet mock trials completed a cycle of tation of Soviet justice and Bolshevik court- redemption for their audiences with a clear rooms played an important role in the narrative of who had done what wrong. One creation of a new code of socially accepted Hour Eighteen purposefully leaves its audi- ethics in which truth and justice were tied to ence with questions left unanswered, thereby the class struggle against bourgeois enemies encouraging each audience member to of the state. Of course not everyone who consider for him or herself how a case like participated in these trials as either an artist Magnitskii’s could have become as common or a spectator was converted to Bolshevism as it has in contemporary Russia. through their representational practice, but In one sense, the trial structure of the play there is no doubt that the post-revolutionary achieves its pursuit of justice in that those
314 http://journals.cambridge.org Downloaded: 01 Nov 2014 IP address: 131.111.184.30 who were never legally held accountable for In Russia, documentary theatre has devel- Magnitskii’s death are finally called to oped as an important form through which answer for their actions. In another sense, participants gain uniquely live access to the however, it is the system itself that is sub - past through the embodiment of verbatim mitted to the strictest scrutiny in Teatr.doc’s texts in the present.24 The artists of Teatr.doc trial. The lack of civic concern expressed apply the method of reconstruction to make by the state employees represented onstage the intricacies of past injustices legible in the resonates far beyond the chipped and var- present. Moreover, they embody the echo of nished walls of Teatr.doc’s underground these injustices in attempting to feel in the theatre. In coming together to discuss the present what their historical subjects are country’s widespread lack of civic justice, the thought to have felt in the past. By re-enacting artists and audiences of One Hour Eighteen the events surrounding Magnitskii’s death, have created a venue in which to begin a new and recalling the country’s long history of public dialogue. judicial corruption in the process, the The development of Russia’s new drama creators of One Hour Eighteen use their ver- movement since the mid-1990s has made the batim texts to create (in the words of Rebecca theatre a dynamic space for the public discus - Schneider) the space for the past and present sion of history, memory, and social iden tity to touch.25 in contemporary Russia. Increased interest and experimentation in documentary theatre Gesture and Approximation have been an integral part of that process. Russia and Eastern Europe have, over the In the final monologue of the play, Judge course of the last twenty years, proved an Krivoruchko is portrayed as if he had especially generative environment for the ‘appeared on the other side and got what he development of documentary theatre. As I deserved’.26 In both of his monologues, the argue here, Russia’s growing fascination with actor playing Krivoruchko portrays the judge documentary theatre is related to the country’s as though he himself had been imprisoned conflicted relationship to its past. Reconcil- and is now in Magnitskii’s position, having ing disputed notions of memory and history to bribe and beg for basic amenities such as a is integral to addressing the country’s wide- cup of hot water. The topic of hot water and spread issues of corruption and apathy in the the fact that Magnitskii was denied it are civic sphere. In order for Russia to establish a themes that run throughout the play. In her renewed relationship to justice, the country opening monologue, Magnitskii’s mother must first begin to reconcile its present refers to her son’s having been refused a cup circumstances with the memory of its past. of boiling water as symbolic of the inhum- After a century of historical revisionism anity of his treatment in prison. And, in his and restricted access to official archives, first monologue, the actor representing Russian theatre artists are using the practice Krivoruchko reads from Magnitskii’s diary of performing documents in order to stage citing his fruitless request, day after day, for new cultural narratives. They use the physi- a cup of hot water. cal practice of performance to find new ways The original production culminates in to interpret the relationship between the past Krivoruchko’s final, and notably fictional, and present. Or, as Diana Taylor describes the monologue titled ‘boiling water’. Here the process in her work on embodied cultural judge is represented begging and bribing for memory, they ‘participate in the production his own elusive cup of hot water. Once his and reproduction of knowledge by “being bribe has been accepted, and a second actor there”, being a part of the transmission’.23 In returns with a steaming kettle, Krivoruchko other words, by engaging in Teatr.doc’s realizes he has no cup in which to receive the staged judicial process, the actors and audi- water and nothing left with which to bribe ences of One Hour Eighteen use the perform- the prison guard. ‘I’d give you something ance to re-inscribe their relation to justice. else,’ he begs. ‘But I don’t have anything,
315 http://journals.cambridge.org Downloaded: 01 Nov 2014 IP address: 131.111.184.30 Igave you everything. I had a watch, but they viable space for the transformation of cultural took it from me. (Shouting.)I don’t have any - narratives. What Ugarov leaves out in this thing!’27 He looks at the actor representing statement is, in addition to the impact of the the prison guard and holds out his hands in words being spoken, the necessity that the a gesture of hopelessness. The guard pours words be heard. The efficacy of the theatre as the water from the steaming kettle into a venue for social change lies in precisely this Krivoruchko’s bare hands. The lights sud- space between the actors’ speaking of the denly go out as the audience hears him words and the audience’s reception of the scream in pain. words. It is the fact of their social community This moment in the play, when the audi - and physical proximity that allows the actors ence bears witness to boiling water pouring and the audiences of One Hour Eighteen to over a helpless man’s hands, approximates enact a uniquely theatrical commemorative the extreme inhumanity Magnitskii and practice where the past, present, and future other victims of the Russian penal system of the memory of Magnitskii’s death can be have suffered as a result of the corruption represented and redefined. And as stated embedded in the country’s legal structure. earlier, the constitution of justice similarly As the Lithuanian-born Russian director resides in that space between the speaking Kama Ginkas said, ‘There are a great many and the hearing of testimonies. things you can’t grasp with your hands but if In reference to Ugarov’s claim that a little you make a poetic gesture around them so to play in a theatre is not going to change any - speak, you can see them approximately.’28 thing, it is true that the play certainly does Although One Hour Eighteen may not in- not change what happened in the past. As spire any immediate institutional change in the words of those involved in Magnitskii’s the Russian legal system, those who witness last days fill the performance space, One and participate in ‘the trial that wasn’t but Hour Eighteen makes clear the unchangeable should have been’ are given the opportunity consequences of the actions of those repre- through the practice of theatrical re-enactment sented. While one’s perception of and access to both touch and be touched by the past. to the past may be altered through the experience of participating in the trial, one thing that is demonstrated in the perform- Summing Up ance is that the horrors of the past did indeed While speaking about the production in an happen, and despite any official efforts to interview before the premiere, the director cover up the record of Magnitskii’s death Mikhail Ugarov said he understood that ‘a and the deaths of countless others, their little play in a theatre isn’t going to change stories will, at least in this venue, still be told. anything But,’ he added, ‘the word will be While Russia’s archives may open and said.’ 29 The significance Ugarov ascribes to close, and documents may be altered or ‘the word’ in this statement is indicative of a protected, the experience shared between central value of verbatim theatre. The repe- the artists and the audiences in a performance tition of verbatim texts in the performance of of One Hour Eighteen is a memory exclusive documentary theatre provides an alternative to the embodied practice of documentary mode of interpreting and indexing history. theatre. The audience sits in the darkness for By recording and performing their testimo - that brief moment before the lights come up, nial evidence, the artists at Teatr.doc give having witnessed the re-enacted torture of voice to otherwise marginalized members of the person before them, and in that space is society. They prioritize the subjectivity of the given the opportunity to begin to feel in the spoken word in contrast to the industry of present what those represented are thought to state media sources. have felt in the past. Although the audience The emphasis Ugarov places on the speak- remains fully cognizant of the fact that the ing of words, however, is only part of the actors are merely surrogates, perhaps appa- equation that makes documentary theatre a ritions, of the original speakers, as Ugarov
316 http://journals.cambridge.org Downloaded: 01 Nov 2014 IP address: 131.111.184.30 said, the word is spoken and the sentiments drops-charges-against-doctor-in-jail-death.html>, accessed 9 May 2012. of those involved in Magnitskii’s last days are 5. See, Sadakat Kadri, ‘Sergei Magnitsky Trial: This in all their ephemerality now finally heard. is Putin’s Kind of Justice’, The Guardian, 12 July 2013 One Hour Eighteen is a very literal example 317 http://journals.cambridge.org Downloaded: 01 Nov 2014 IP address: 131.111.184.30