Torture

An urgent piece of verbatim theatre looking at the use of torture as a weapon in the ongoing Penza Case. Torture is directed by Zarema Zaudinova and is written and performed by Alexey Polikhovich, Alexey Sutuga, Yegor Skovoroda, Maxim Pakhomov and Zarema Zaudoniva. It will be accompanied by a live soundtrack by cellist Alina Anufrienko.

In the run up to Russia’s 2018 World Cup, the FSB arrested 11 young antifascists and anarchists linked only by playing an online game. Once arrested, these boys vanished for two days. Their relatives, lawyers and human rights activists could find no trace of them. When human rights activists finally located them in an FSB prison they were seen to have bruises, injuries and traces of electric shock. All those involved had signed confessions under torture linking them to a terrorist cell, but later they refused to testify.

In April, 11 young defendants in the Penza case will go on trial in Moscow.

Teatr.doc was created in 2002 by playwrights and directors lead by husband and wife artistic directors, Elena Gremina and Mikhail Ugarov. Gremina was introduced to the idea of verbatim theatre through a workshop lead by the Royal Court’s late International Director Elyse Dodgson in the 1990s. Teatr.doc’s work has led the way for many emerging Russian theatremakers anxious to expose the truth and make sense of their experiences. Constantly attacked by the authorities, Teatr.doc have remained at the cutting edge of Russian theatre for two decades, staging challenging and innovative verbatim theatre.

Image: Russians protesting against the detention and torture of the 11 young people in the Penza case outside the Russian embassy in Stockholm, 29 Jan 2019.