TheEconomistFebruary 1st 2020 711A
nastasia patlay thought something
was amiss when she checked the
young man’s id. He seemed a couple of
years below the strict 18+ requirement for
this performance of “Out of the Closet”, a
play adapted from interviews with gay men
and their families. That restriction was not
the choice of Ms Patlay, the director, but a
demand of Russian federal law, which
since 2013 has banned the “promotion of
non-traditional sexual relationships” to
minors. A photocopy of his passport,
which Ms Patlay snapped on her phone,
suggested he had recently turned 19. Per-
haps she was being paranoid, but Teatr.doc,
which specialises in verbatim dramas as-
sembled from real-life documents and
transcripts—and has long been described
as “Russia’s most controversial theatre
company”—had already had enough trou-
ble from the authorities.
Her hunch was vindicated; the specta-
tor was a plant sent by a far-right group.
Shortly after the show began, he and his
friend walked out to rendezvous with a
dozen more agitators. Together they ac-
cused the theatre staff of illegally exposing
children to “gay propaganda”. (The pass-
port had been doctored; in reality, the
youngster was 15.) Then they invaded the
auditorium, stopping the play and shout-
ing homophobic slurs. Police were called
and a fight broke out; Teatr.doc complained
about the invasion, the saboteurs that a mi-
nor had been admitted.
No charges were brought, but that sting
last August turned out to be the start of a
protracted ordeal for the Moscow-based
company at the hands of ultraconserva-
tives. Despite all the official pressure that
Teatr.doc had suffered, this campaign was
(and is) a new and different problem. It en-
capsulates the dual challenge of artistic
censorship in Russia—which, as Vladimir
Putin’s rule has progressed, has come to be
enforced by freelance outfits as well as the
state, and as much for supposedly moral
reasons as over political dissent.
Teatr.doc was founded in 2002 by Elena
Gremina and Mikhail Ugarov, husband-
and-wife playwrights who were inspired
by verbatim drama workshops in Russialed by the Royal Court theatre of London.
Its shows elicited strong responses from
the start, not only because of the content—
subjects included homelessness, immigra-
tion and hiv—but also their style and
everyday language. Productions that drew
particular ire (and acclaim) included “Sep-
tember.doc”, in which actors read com-
ments made in internet chat rooms follow-
ing the Beslan school siege of 2004, and
“One Hour Eighteen Minutes”, a reference
to the time doctors were denied access to
Sergei Magnitsky, a whistle-blowing law-
yer, before he died in police custody. “They
went after things that ail the society,” says
John Freedman, a critic and translator of
Russian drama, “and they did it in a way
that was quite direct.”
Despite its quality, Teatr.doc only ever
played in small venues. It has been obliged
to find a new one three times in the past six
years after leases were terminated, suppos-
edly because of noise and safety com-
plaints. Bomb scares have been reported at
several performances, shutting them
down, but no explosives have been found.
Instead, police have exploited the scares to
check audience members’ documents.
It might seem odd for the authorities to
expend so much effort on niggling an ex-
perimental troupe. But as well as being a
salutary demonstration of power, such
treatment nudges the Kremlin’s opponents
to rally round artists who can be carica-
tured as libertine extremists. Some alter-
native targets—pop stars, say—have higherArt and dissent
Pursued by a bear
MOSCOW
The travails of a cutting-edge theatre company show how censorship
in Russia has evolved
Books & arts
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