Stage Review - Mother Russia (Seattle Rep)

Stage Review - Mother Russia
Presented By: Seattle Rep - Seattle, WA
Show Run: March 06 - April 13, 2025
Date Reviewed: Wednesday, March 12, 2025 (Opening Night)
Run Time: 90 Minutes (no intermission)
Reviewed By: Greg Heilman

I’m going to skip a little bit of the pretense here, or at least of some of typical structure I try to put into my reviews. Well, maybe I’ll delay it, because I want to start this by saying something that struck me this past Wednesday coming out of the opening night performance of Mother Russia at Seattle Rep. Earlier this year, in my review for the Rep’s opener The Skin of Our Teeth, a challenging play in many ways, I wrote “(a)ll and all, this is a well done piece of art and a fantastic look into the future of this new artistic director’s vision for the future of Seattle Rep”. What I hadn’t known at that point, of course, was that it would follow with excellent produtions of Primary Trust, Blithe Spirit and Blues for an Alabama Sky. The Rep’s current show, Mother Russia, the latest in what I’m seeing as a fantastic debut season curated by Dámaso Rodríguez, is yet another winner, and while other theaters in the area are leaning on the “hits” and putting up shows with familiar names, Seattle Rep is continuing its tradition of curating original works, acting as a proving ground for innovative theatre, and staging world premieres, like they are currently doing with Lauren Yee’s Mother Russia, originally slated to open in La Jolla, but lost its spot there due to the Covid pandemic. This stance from the Rep is risky, especially financially, but artistically it’s a coup, it makes them unique and ultimately trustworthy in their commitment to the art form. Plus, it solidifies my confidence in the organization’s future under Dámaso’s direction.

This particular play has everything going for it, it’s an hysterical comedy as well as a thrilling edge of your seat historical spy drama, and yet it’s also a study in class distinction and social disparity, one of contrasting governmental and economic systems, and an interrogation of the impact of political change on a society set in the context of the downfall of Communism and dissolution of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. It is an excellently layered piece and shows the leadership from Dámaso that you look for in a theatre organization, putting a priority on art that is important and doing the work to get it on stage. It’s not done in a vacuum, though, Lauren Yee has written a funny play and important play, Nicholas C. Avila is directing a production that is fast paced, sets the audience up with its humor, and then hits them with Lauren’s underlying message, and his creative team has done a top notch job in presenting this work. I have only one comment on the writing, more of a question that I’m not sure I can answer. Within the humor and the overarching storyline, there are a number of references to life in the cold war Soviet Union, references that we of a certain generation (and older) who lived through that time get, and so we understand the jokes. The question is whether younger theatre goers, anyone younger than, say, Generation X, will get the jokes, at least to the extent that the older folks do.

The cast of the play is small, just three characters and Mother Russia. In the main story arc, old friends Evgeny and Dmitri meet up after not having seen each other for years. With the recent fall of the Soviet Union and the increasing influence of the West and capitalism, they’re both trying to find their footing in the new world of St. Petersberg, the town they both knew so well before as Leningrad. Dmitri had always wanted to be a KGB agent, and to hear it from him, he was at the top of the waiting list when the wall fell and the KGB was disbanded, so he opened a shop, a Russian version of a bodega, a shop that just happens to have no customers. Meanwhile, Evgeny, who it’s pretty evident early on comes from a pretty well-to-do family, had been an economist for the Soviet government, but now that the market was open, and making decisions for itself (“How does it do that?” is one of the best conversations between the two), and economists aren’t, he finds himself out of a job. As the friends get talking, Evgeny asks what Dmitri is going to do because he has no customers, so he tells him that not only isn’t he worried, because he’s got something else going on, but it’s also something that he can sure use Evgeny’s help with. Evgeny, happy to get anything, jumps at it, despite its shadiness and despite the fact that there’s no pay, because he can at least tell his overbearing father that he has a job. That job involves keeping tabs on Katya, a former singer turned school teacher, who is also trying to find her way in the new economy. They don’t know why they’re doing it, they’re just happy to do it, Dmitri feeling like he’s part of the spy game and Evgeny just happy to be “employed”. What none of them count on is that the more they keep tabs on Katya, the closer they get to her, the more complicated and challenging the job becomes, and for anyone who remembers the Russia of the early 1990s, the people who were involved in shady activities didn’t take kindly to their jobs becoming “complicated”.

Most of the play takes place in Dmitry’s shop, which at the beginning of the play is visible to the audience just from the outside, looking like a display of products from that era, mostly American, and accurate for the time period in their design. The play starts, though, with Mother Russia, played so well by Julie Briskman, lamenting about the recent changes in her country. Mather Russia provides all of the between-scene entertainment and, yes, there is a lot of lamenting, most of it about what is a common theme in the play, the overwhelming responsibility of choice that Russian citizens have after the fall of Communism. Dmitry and Evgeny talk about it, whether it’s toothpaste, or going to McDonald’s, or just the burden of choice being so pervasive when before those choices were made for them, and Mother Russia talks about it in the context of her country losing its soul, how families are trading their personal libraries, for example, including classic novels from Russian authors for Gameboys. It’s a message that resonates, especially now, and especially in our own country where a priority is placed on financial well being above all else, and how that is increasingly a part of our culture, opening up the debate around whether we really do have a soul as a nation, and how that tracks when it seems like the majority of it is for sale. There’s a lot of contrast in the themes of the show, and Lauren builds them in nicely, what it was like before (“we had to share a stick of chewing gum”) and what it’s like now (their reaction eating their first sandwich at McDonalds), how money seems to be the avenue to success, but also how for everything that has changed, what came after is really a dressed up version of its predecessor, and all Mother Russia can do is hope for the best. I like Julie in this role, from her gypsy adjacent costume, designed by Misha Kachman, to her accent and her wonderful and lovable personality and sense of humor, it’s all there, and her thought-provoking monologues bring a lot of levity to the humor.

When that central set piece (the set was also designed by Misha) turns around, it opens up to the interior of Dmitri’s store, which is where most of the play takes place, save for some scenes in front of Evgeny’s father’s door, where the son tries to find some sort of line of communication with his elder. The visibility of the door is accomplished by another quarter rotation of the set to the door that doubles as the side door to the store. I like the way the whole creative team works to create a play that is a complete package, especially on the sound front from designer Vincent Olivieri, and lighting from Peter Maradudin, both coming together at the climax of the story to provide a nice punch to one of the most important messages of the play.

The messaging of the play is strong and deep, and the humor is off the charts. A lot of the latter has to do with Jesse Calixto and Billy Finn, who play Dmitri and Evgeny, respectively. Jesse is so funny in this role, his humor is expressive, it’s physical, and it’s in your face, there’s nothing nuanced about his comedic style. Billy, on the other hand, while just as funny, delivers his more with a dry one-liner, or a sly look, a little more subtle. The two together, though, are like a classic comedy team, where Billy would be the straight and Jesse the funny. Their timing is impeccable and they’re at their best when they’re trying to figure out and use American slogans or doing something like sampling their first McDonalds meal. The third member of the trio is Andi Alhadeff as Katya, she’s the subject of the work that the boys are engaged in, and the way she challenges Billy’s Evgeny, who plays a wonderfully nervous schoolboy around her, is excellent, their conversations start with a good amount of tension but loosen as the play continues, each one an important contribution to the messaging, yet another way in which Lauren has creatively weaved this together, masterfully. Andi’s work is so important to the story, and she is extremely strong in support of Jesse and Billy, and when the three have a chance to be together on stage, together they produce some of the most passionate emotion of the play.

While other theaters may be leveraging more well-known plays and musicals as part of their post-Covid recovery strategy, the Seattle Rep and Dámaso Rodríguez continue their strategy of putting art first with their latest World Premiere, Lauren Yee’s Mother Russia. A wonderfully layered piece, it’s a comedy and a spy thriller, and yet it’s also a study in class distinction and social disparity, one of contrasting governmental and economic systems, and an interrogation of the impact of political change on a society set in post-Communist Russia. The Rep’s production is wonderfully presented, and the cast is fantastic at delivering the humor along with its underlying messaging, but more than anything, the choice of this play and the level of quality of the production solidifies my confidence in the future of the Rep as Seattle’s home for new and innovative theatre.

Mother Russia runs on stage in the Leo K. Theatre at Seattle Rep through April 13. For more information, including ticket availability and sales, visit https://www.seattlerep.org/.

Photo credit: Sayed Alamy