Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Belarus Free Theatre returns with KS6: SMALL FORWARD, Katya Snytsina’s clear-eyed personal and political memoir

• By drediman
• September 24, 2024
• No Comments

Last night, La MaMa’s fall season officially commenced with the opening of Belarus Free Theatre’s production of KS6: Small Forward. For those unfamiliar with Belarus Free Theatre, the company is a maker of unabashedly political theater, particularly in retaliation to the authoritarian regime under Belarus president Alexander Lukashenko. For this reason, the troupe has been banned from performing by its home government, rendering the company and its members practically homeless. Instead, they’ve brought their bold, highly physical brand of devised political theater-making to countries around the world. Over the years, I’ve invariably sought out these visceral performances, whose emotional extremities and outright daredevil antics have yielded some of the most potent political theater I’ve come across.

Upon first glance, their current production at the iconic East Village experimental theater venue comes across registering on the tamer end of the company’s intensity spectrum. This is mostly because of the cool demeanor of the figure at its core, international basketball star turned political activist Katsiaryna (better known simply as Katya) Snytsina, who defected from her home country of Belarus — she found subsequent success as a basketball player with the London Lions — upon publicly protesting against the terrors her country had been inflicting on its people. This is not to say that KS6: Small Forward is no less urgent than previous Belarus Free Theatre offerings. Indeed, don’t be deceived by Snytsina’s unaffected, matter-of-fact-delivery. She is an imposing physical presence — towering 6 foot, 2 inches in height — as well as an articulate communicator despite English not being her first language, and she navigates her story with nuance and calm authority. Throughout, she keeps it all disarmingly real, refreshingly coming across as nothing more or less than her authentic self.

Snytsina’s anchoring performance grounds the theatrical flourishes that surround her, a seemingly haphazard cornucopia of deceptively whimsical basketball iconography, eye-opening film footage, stylized yet highly-charged depictions of torture and state-inflicted violence, and so forth. And let’s not forget the game of basketball itself, which has been incorporated — both literally and metaphorically — into the 90-minute show. KS6: Small Forward is segmented into four distinct quarters, cleverly mirroring the structure of a basketball game, over the course of which it comfortably covers Snytsina‘s family life, meteoric basketball carreer, and political and sexual awakening (Snytsina is an out-and-proud lesbian) — disparate topics that she melds beautifully in her clear-eyed narrative.

RECOMMENDED

KS6: SMALL FORWARD
Off-Broadway, Play
Belarus Free Theatre at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club
1 hour, 30 minutes (without an intermission)
Through October 13