NEW YORK — A portrait of Vladimir Putin looms over the classroom-like set of Intractable Woman. Russian and Chechen flags stand at attention in the background; an official’s desk and microphones sit in the foreground. Rows of neatly arranged chairs fill the remaining space where actresses Stacey Yen, Nadine Malouf, and Nicole Shalhoub tell a story of censorship, violence, and bravery through the life of Anna Politkovskaya.
Anna Politkovskaya was a Russian journalist who covered the war in Chechnya in the late 1990s and early 2000s, until she was assassinated in 2006. It is widely believed that Putin ordered Anna’s assassination because of her critical coverage of the Russian government. Intractable Woman follows Anna’s final years reporting in Chechnya and Moscow as she survived bombings, dangerous living conditions, and attacks on her life. Despite reprimands from Russian government officials, Anna continued reporting on the conflict in Chechnya—describing both abuses by the Russian military and violence from Chechen forces.
Intractable Woman, written by the Italian playwright Stefano Massini, first premiered in Europe during the 2007-2008 season—just a year after Anna’s death. Now, it is making its debut to American audiences at the Play Company in New York City, where it will run through October 14, 2018. Just as Intractable Woman was likely complicated by Anna’s recent death when it premiered in 2007, its focus on censorship and conflict have new meanings today. Russian journalists still face censorship, and even threats to their lives, under Putin’s government while American journalists are confronting criticisms of their credibility in an era of “Fake News.”
Throughout the play, Yen, Malouf, and Shalhoub alternate between roles. In many scenes, they speak in a monologue that resembles what could have been snippets of Anna’s reporting—descriptions of her interviews or violence that she witnessed. At other times, they reenact exchanges between Anna and her interview subjects or government officials. With each character played by one of the three actresses, Intractable Woman feels like the sum of Anna’s writing, reporting, and memory.
In the first minutes of the play, the three actresses explain the name of the play: there are two types of people who criticize the Russian state—those who can be reformed through “reeducation” and others who cannot, who are simply “intractable.” The stage itself is set to remind audiences of Anna’s misdeed: the rows of chairs and menacing desk resemble a classroom for patriotic “reeducation.” Despite the setting, Anna refuses to conform. She stands by her commitment to press freedom, and ultimately pays the price for it—she must be killed.
Anna is a critical journalist, and that makes it harder for her to cover conflict in Chechnya. Government officials disparage her for not altering their statements to sound better in print and for reporting on both Chechen and Russian misdoings. Notably, Anna writes for a newspaper called “Novaya Gazeta,” an independent newspaper regarded as the watchdog of Russian government since its founding by Mikhael Gorbachev 25 years ago. Declared an enemy of the state, Anna is detained, jailed, abducted, and even poisoned. Yet, she persists in reporting facts.
Journalists are taught to remain unbiased in their reporting, but sometimes that’s easier said than done. While covering the conflict in Chechnya, Anna witnesses bombings, mass rapes, decapitations, and the death of children. Awakened one night by a massive explosion, Anna runs toward the scene of the incident. Traumatized by what she sees, Anna begins to chant “blood, snow”—describing the scene around her. But even when upset and disturbed, Anna returns to her role as a reporter. She starts chanting the names of other objects she sees—a coat, a child, household objects. She catalogues the damage so that she can report what she has observed.
In a final scene, Anna explains why she remains neutral, despite everything that she has seen, “I am a journalist, not a court of law or a magistrate.” But, she continues, “It seems like the easiest thing, but here it’s the most difficult. And it exacts the highest price.” The highest price, for Anna, is ultimately her life—though also suggesting that her sense of morality and humanity are on the line.
The play concludes with the actresses laying a photograph at the front of the stage of the actual Anna Politkovskaya. Where the three women represented the complexity of Anna’s life, they emphasize a single truth in her death: without press freedom, journalists face a perilous reality. Because she remained “intractable,” Anna was assassinated by the Russian state.
Intractable Woman reminded European audiences of the importance of press freedom in the year following Anna’s death. Today, the play shares that message with American audiences engaged in their own debates about whether to trust journalists.
PHOTO: A rally in memory of Anna Politovskaya. Source: Vladimir Varfolomeev / Flickr. Filed under CC.
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