Anti-Putin Play Opens B Sharp

It's good to see the Russians haven't lost their taste for being anti-everything. And so begins B Sharp's 2009 season with the Australian premiere of the anti-Putin play Ladybird by Russian writer Vassily Sigarev.

Most of the promotional info floating around is centring on who won a Sydney Theatre Critic Award or who in the production did this or who did that. The interesting story, however, is around the young playwright who has penned this work.

To begin with, Vassily Sigarev is just 31 and already the author of nineteen plays which have been performed in all corners of the world. (But not too much in Sydney funnily enough).

At such a young age and with such a prolific amount of work behind him, it's no surprise that Sigarev has won a whole heap of awards making him a theatre celebrity by the time he was just 25.

To begin with, Sigarev comes from the Ural part of Russia. Depending on who you ask, you'll get a few different notions of what that means. On the website Russia.com they describe the Urals as an area with "forested mountains, partially wooded steppes and normal, grassy steppes. Together these combine to make a beautiful and diverse landscape which exhibits topographical elements from all over Russia".

Elsewhere they'll tell you that the region was one of the most cruelly affected by the collapse of the USSR. It went through severe impoverishment and appalling isolation. The population, like many remote areas of Eastern Europe felt as though they were drowning in their new and so-called freedom. Industry was lost, commerce was lost but more importantly it was a side of Russian life not seen on our television screens. It was a Russia losing its values and its culture to a lust for material goods as it entered a stupor ignoring the rapid growth between those who could just afford bread and those who could afford a Porsche.

And in walks Sigarev who has something to say about the whole thing - which goes some way to explain why he already has a score of plays under his belt.

Ladybird, first produced in English in 2004, is set in an apartment situated next to a cemetery in a bleak little town with very little hope. As with all good things Russian it has its fair share of drinking and continues to fly the Chekhov flag of young people wanting to get to 'Moscow' (read: somewhere, anywhere but here).

How it goes down in Surry Hills will be interesting. It will be directed by Lee Lewis (now I know why she was loitering around Central Station today), stars my new favourite actor of the minute Yael Stone and received a New Work Production grant from the Australia Council for over $50,000.

Should be a corker of a show to kick off the year.