Vanya is a man who sends smartphone memes to his mother as a sign of love and caring. Alya, like any mother, wants nothing more than for her son to be healthy, happy, and safe on his way home. Imagine how joyful she is upon hearing that Vanya is alive and coming back, and how wonderful and pleasant the gentle breeze and sunshine must feel on such a normal spring day!
Inspired by, but not directly depicting the recent Russia-Ukraine war, Natalia Lizorkina’s Vanya Is Alive leads a heartbreaking journey of a mother who repeatedly receives contradictory news of her son and struggles to cope. (Un)expectedly, she has to face the harsh reality through alcohol and must learn how to forget. The play has ample potential, distilling profound emotions of love and despair, patriotism, and critical reflections on war per se. It tackles a theme that warrants everyone’s attention.
However, I am not convinced that this particular production (directed by Ivanka Polchenko) succeeds in conveying the script’s richness; in fact, it may diminish it significantly through a series of perplexing directorial choices. The entire show feels unfinished, demonstrating poor overall execution. Over 60 minutes, actor Nikolay Mulakov basically just stands still and recites the entire text, including all the stage direction and character headings, quite similar to verbatim theatre. While it appears that Lizorkina does intend one actor to portray all roles (as stated on the script’s first page), the decision to literally recite the entire script rather than present a traditional solo performance comes across as baffling and illogical. I remain unconvinced.
Even worse, for the most part, Mulakov stands motionless, reciting the text without any tonal or emotional variation. There is also almost no blocking to convey even the barest sense of different locations such as Alya’s home, the neighbourhood’s convenience store, or at the prison doctor’s. Later in the show, Mulakov does occasionally move around, but only in a steady, emotionless and mechanical manner. Polchenko may be trying to depict Alya’s psychological loop of recurring hope and despair, but the staging feels random, bizarre, and ultimately untheatrical.
The Omnibus Theatre stage remains vast and bare, with no set design, lacklustre lighting, and an incomprehensible soundscape reminding me of the sound of my intermittently clicking electric heater. For sure, minimalism can be a valid and feasible artistic choice, and elaborate design, sound, or lighting is not always necessary. Indeed, in many monologue plays that rely on virtuoso storytelling, a bare stage with minimalist designs is often praised. Yet none of those ever gave me such a strong sense of extreme carelessness or half-heartedness. I struggle to find any sincerity or genuine intent behind these artistic decisions. It almost feels like a betrayal of a story that demands genuine seriousness
So, is it that a war-related tale of ordinary people, like Alya’s, is considered powerful enough on its own and requires no embellishment? Or is this merely a half-finished, perfunctory effort? In the end, we can clearly tell the difference.
