Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Stefano Massini’s straight-shooting INTRACTABLE WOMAN is brought to theatrical life in a striking, elegant staging

• By drediman
• September 26, 2018
• No Comments

Nicole Shalhoub, Nadine Malouf, and Stacey Yen in Stefano Massini’s “Intractable Woman” at 122 Community Center’s Second Floor Theater, courtesy of PlayCo.

Last night, I attended a performance of PlayCo’s production of Stefano Massini’s docudrama (translated by Paula Wing) Intractable Woman: A Theatrical Memo of Anna Politkovskaya at 122 Community Center’s Second Floor Theater. I hadn’t seen Mr. Massini’s work before, but I was eager to do so walking towards the freshly renovated East Village venue. For those of you unfamiliar with the playwright, Mr. Massini penned the National Theatre’s epic, much acclaimed The Lehman Trilogy, which is transferring to New York’s Park Avenue Armory next spring after a very successful run in London. Intractable Woman recounts Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya’s escalating frustrations with her homeland’s wonky politics and its administration, as reflected in her journalistic output. She was found dead in her apartment building in 2006, undoubtedly murdered for her simply stating facts in her articles.

Unlike the woman at the center of the piece, there’s nothing controversial about Mr. Massini’s Intractable Woman. The playwright eschews brash theatricality (which was the undoing of THE AЯTS, another docudrama about the troubles facing the performing arts in this country vis-à-vis the NEA’s funding capacity; it’s currently playing a few blocks away at La MaMa) in favor of a straight-shooting – even plain – approach. In an unnervingly calm and steady tone, the play recounts various accounts of Russia’s terrorizing injustices. It’s main theatrical flourish is to have the titular role portrayed onstage by three actresses, as in the otherwise vastly different Summer (a musical about pop artist Donna Sumer’s life) on Broadway.

Director Lee Sunday Evans gives the production a striking, elegant staging, as if to offset – or camouflage? – the simplicity of the fact-focused text. He places the play in a vaguely menacing room, presided over by President Putin’s coolly smiling portrait. The space calls to mind a number of settings where violent, state-instigated acts, covered of course byMs. Politkovskaya, had taken place (one of the more disturbing was an incident involving the slaughter of mere children in a classroom). The three actresses playing Ms. Politkovskaya – Nicole Shalhoub, Nadine Malouf, and Stacey Yen – each give clear-eyed, sympathetic performances that reenforce Mr. Massini’s direct vision. The effect is as if the ghost(s) of Ms. Politkovskaya has returned to investigate the puzzling albeit precarious circumstances of her life and times.

RECOMMENDED

THE INTRACTABLE WOMAN
Off-Broadway, Play
PlayCo at 122 Community Center’s Second Floor Theater
1 hour, 20 minutes (without an intermission)
Through October 14