Asking us to consider censorship – and the costs challengers face
Former President of the Czech Republic Vaclav Havel told Belarus Free Theatre: “If you want change, you can’t whisper. You have to scream.”
Courage, suffering and determination are so much a part of the visual landscape that we picture people fleeing from or standing up against persecution, that the real meaning of those images are lost.
What Natalia Koliada, exiled artistic director of Belarus Free Theatre, multimedia presentation on censorship was better than a thousand media clips; real courage is standing up to tyranny, and its cost is not a 15 minute out-take.
In fact, it is an entire life. In fact, that is the cost.
Understated but impressive
The Ragged University hosted a panel in the Tron’s Changing House as part of Refugee Week Scotland that included Koliada, Scottish director Peter Arnott and Dr Laura Bradley from Edinburgh University. Ragged performed caricatured sketches of systematic persecution, written by Harold Pinter, but Free Belarus Theatre was the show.
Koliada’s presentation, produced by husband Nikolai Khalezin, on the suffocation of trying to live expressing simple dissatisfaction impressed because it was understated.
The Belarus Free Theatre was set up in March 2005 to oppose the regime of Europe’s last tyrant Alexander Lukashenko. The slide show of friends standing outside of the main government building, now imprisoned, like opposition presidential candidate Andrei Sannikov – or murdered, like her colleague who ran online news-site Charter 97, was as matter-of-fact as reminiscing with someone remembering old friends. A million miles away from the uprisings of television and as familiar, uncomfortable and as meaningful as our own everyday lives.
Breaking down barriers
Koliada’s tales of the normal and extraordinary, in a country only two hours from Scotland by airplane, broke down the barriers we erect to separate us from extremes. Those barriers and those hardships can be absurd.
The comedy that Koliada brought to the story of the struggle against censorship highlighted our common humanity. How we demean ourselves by denying its existence. How we can be united by the humour in struggling against oppression?
After Free Belarus Theatre went into exile they sought funding from the European Union for their work and were told they would only receive it if the Belarus authorities confirmed the theatre company existed.
Struggling to be the voice against tyranny
Those involved with Belarus Free Theatre were tortured and imprisoned. Their friends, colleagues and associates had their business closed, their means of living ended. To keep the company going, Natalia parents provided help to buy props out of their own pensions.
Struggling to be a voice against tyranny is a world away from our own pension crisis and as close as a present from our parents.
Knocking down walls – literally
As the performances were driven underground Belarus Free Theatre found ingenious ways to get back to the open. The cast and audience pretended to be at weddings. The authorities stopped the weddings.
When Belarus Free Theatre escaped to the US, one of their first productions was Discover Love, the story of a dissident whose husband ‘disappeared’.
They performed where they could find room, however claustrophobic. In one case a friend’s room in his home, they knocked down a wall so they could have an audience. There was no ventilation to hide them from the authorities – Koliada described the room as being so small that they they couldn’t breathe.
Struggling to find a life and room where you could breathe was the real message of Our Narrowing World – a lifetime of continuous courage by refugees against censorship and persecution.
Ragged’s (and Belarus Free Theatre’s) production was testimony that history is a long struggle, not brief moments of defiance.
And in giving the audience room to reflect (to breathe) with Natalie Koliada, Peter Arnott, we understand how close to home and to our lives the story of Belarus Free Theatre is.
Belarus Free Theatre is supported by Mick Jagger, British dramatist Tom Stoppard (who visited Belarus to teach), Scottish playwright Peter Arnott, famous actors such as Jude Law and Kevin Spacey and a host people involved in the arts.
Show support!
Show your support for Belarus Free Theatre and Ragged because you aren’t forced to scream.
