Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – BAM’s Next Wave Festival is on an early roll with WHAT IF THEY WENT TO MOSCOW?, Christiane Jatahy’s ambitious multi-media triumph

• By drediman
• October 24, 2019
• No Comments

Isabel Teixeira, Julia Bernat, and Stella Rabello in Christiane Jatahy’s “What if they went to Moscow?”, an offering at BAM’s Next Wave Festival.

Last night, I attended the opening performance of What if they went to Moscow?, Christiane Jatahy’s contemporary multi-media riff on Chekhov’s Three Sisters. Ms. Jatahy, an award-winning Brazilian auteur now making her BAM debut, gives us a streamlined version of Chekhov’s classic play about three Russian sisters — Olga, Maria, and Irina — focusing on Irina’s 20^th birthday party, which also happens to be the first anniversary of their father’s death. As the night unfolds and the alcohol starts flowing, it becomes clear just how miserable each of them are in their respective lot in life. Structurally, the production is split into two halves. The first involves a live performance of the play in the Fisher and its simultaneous broadcast in the Rose. The second half of the evening involves the two audiences swapping venues and repeating the process.

There’s so much going on in Ms. Jatahy’s adaptation – conceptually, technically, and emotionally – that it’s hard to know exactly where to begin. By experiencing the same story (told mostly in Portuguese with projected translations, but also with playful interludes in English) as both theater and cinema, the audience has the rare opportunity to note the key differences between the two mediums, which many make the mistake of directly comparing. In many ways, theater is a more diffused, communal method of storytelling, with the audience at large an active participant in the experience. Theater audiences also tend to be more acutely aware of the various modes of production (e.g., lighting, sets, etc.), which can have a distancing effect. Cinema, on the other hand, is typically a more naturalistic, personal – albeit manipulative – experience, one that’s easier to digest because the camera basically dictates what we should see and feel. Brilliantly, these differences are keenly apparent in What if they went to Moscow?

If the show merely engaged on this theoretical level, it would have been a success. Ambitiously, Ms. Jatahy is also interested in engaging the heart, in addition to the mind. Indeed, the show is also manages to be a deeply affecting meditation on the universal human tragedy of how difficult it is to truly change. As the conduit for this secondary agenda, Ms. Jatahy’s cast – which also doubles as the “film crew” (dramaturgically, video cameras are ingeniously incorporated into the plot) –  is extraordinary. In fact, I think I fell head over heels in love with the cast – Isabel Teixeira, Julia Bernat, and Stella Rabello play the frustratingly stuck sisters with such candid, splendid vitality – last night. Each give completely distinctive, disarming, and heartbreaking performances that I won’t soon forget. Altogether, What if they went to Moscow? is a triumphant endeavor, both in terms of theater, as well cinema. That the two mediums create such an involved, active dialogue with each other beyond that accomplishment is an astonishing feat. 2019 Next Wave, curated by new artistic director David Binder, is on an early roll; I eagerly anticipate the next adventure.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

WHAT IF THEY WENT TO MOSCOW?
Off-Broadway, Play/Film
Le CentQuatre, Zurcher Theaterspektakel, and SESC / BAM Fisher Theater & BAM Rose Cinema
3 hours, 30 minutes (with one intermission)
Through October 27