Lauren Yee’s Back With MOTHER RUSSIA — Review

On a school trip to Russia at age 17, myself and 20-30 other teenagers were shuttled around by two successive tour guides—the first in Moscow, a second in St. Petersburg. At some point during that first week, we asked our Moscow tour guide if life in Russia was better or worse since the fall of the Soviet Union.

“Life is better,” he insisted, pointing to the freedoms now afforded to individuals. “Some people will tell you otherwise, but they are looking back through…”—a pause as he struggled for the English expression, then found it—“...through rose-tinted glasses.”

Our second guide, in St. Petersburg, donned those rosy glasses without hesitation. “Life is much worse,” he proclaimed, lamenting a loss of national identity. “It does not feel like Russia anymore.”

The central trio of Lauren Yee’s off-kilter comedy Mother Russia fall firmly into that “rose-tinted glasses” camp. Struggling to find their bearings in the newly commercialized St. Petersburg of 1992, these adrift souls yearn for a time when things made sense—when Russia was Russia. Although, they do still enjoy a good McDonalds Filet-O-Fish.

“Is this what capitalism tastes like?” slobbers Dmitri (Stephen Boyer) as he devours the breaded patty provided by Evgeny (Adam Chanler-Berat), the weak-willed son of a former party elder. Evgeny was sent to shake Dimitri down, but he’s none too intimidating. Instead, he ends up joining Dimitri’s makeshift surveillance outfit, helping to spy on schoolteacher Katya (Rebecca Naomi Jones), who has returned home following a failed effort as a singer in the U.S.. 

Dmitri and Evgeny are a buffoonish pair, and Yee looks to play their hapless efforts at spycraft for broad laughs. On this front, the results are a mixed bag. Chanler-Berat is playing an ironic distance that clashes with Boyer’s more sincere approach. The overall tone should be absurd, and the pacing frantic—but director Teddy Bergman only sometimes hits on that combo, too often letting the tempo sag.  

Yee lands some solid zingers, but the play’s juvenile humor often frustrates. Dimitri’s mysterious client is “very high level,” he proclaims, explaining: “A fuck ton of stairs”; for productions of The Cherry Orchard in the Russian theater of 1992, “the cherries are non-union.” Etcetera, and so on.

The overall political message lands more firmly. When Dmitry laments that he can no longer join the brutal, dissent-smashing security force of the former Soviet Union, his reasoning carries a sting. 

“If I could join the KGB, I wouldn’t have to figure out who I was,” he sighs. “Because they would tell me!”

Thankfully, that’s the most near-didactic Yee ever allows her dialogue to become. The parallels to contemporary U.S. society in Mother Russia are clear—from the sneaking allure of authoritarianism, to undereducated washouts finding purpose as mindless thugs of the state. But Yee does not underline the point.

She instead finds an intriguing theatrical language for Russia’s slip back into autocracy. The old Russia is represented here by our semi-narrator, Mother Russia, who opens the play and comments on the action throughout. An excellent David Turner, in full-on Babushka mode, plays this embodiment of Russia’s lost Soviet soul with a thick accent, goading in direct address: “They think I will die before long, but! What do they know?” 

While this trio of kids bumble around aimlessly, Mother Russia dominates the stage, gliding in and out with power and poise. The young threesome speak in American accents (weak, gross); Mother speaks with a powerful Russian cadence (dynamic, formidable). In the tightly windowed playing space of dots’ garage set, these kids often appear like marionettes, running around with their heads chopped off. (Hand-painted backdrops drive home the point, delightfully so.) The continued power of Mother Russia, even in the midst of her supposed defeat, feels absolute; her eventual return to total might, inevitable.

Mother Russia is a tonal mess, but a savvy work in many respects. If Yee’s writing isn’t quite witty enough to sell some of her wilder ideas, she nonetheless lands at a stirring conclusion that hits uncomfortably close to home.

‍Mother Russia is now in performance at Signature Theatre in New York City. For tickets and more information, visit here.