YOUR SILENCE WILL NOT PROTECT YOU

This theatrical concert brings to the stage the courtroom speeches of present-day Russian prisoners of conscience, those convicted for YouTube, alleged terrorists from TikTok, but also dissidents, and often unwittingly involved artists.

At the heart of the production are Czech translations of the closing court speeches from two dozen cases in recent years. Journalists, entrepreneurs, artists, activists, professors, students, children. In Russia, they are all perpetrators, criminals, and they are given only a slight hint of a voice in the trials. On our stage, in a transparent cage, but somehow without restraint, they can say what they really think.

A glass cage, the outlines of the accused, the prosecutors’ files, laws,   the harsh language of the honourable court. Fear in front of the barrier greater than that behind it.   Tikkun olam is the repair of the world. Vladimir Kara-Murza cannot stand on his feet, Olga Misik clutches a whistle, the Ingush elder Malsag Uzhakov sees a fat, predatory, enormous and hundred-headed monster, an official leans too far out of the window, and Alexei Navalny quotes from the Bible: “This is your hour, the reign of darkness.”

Screenplay: Ondřej Novotný
Dramaturgy: Marina Feltlová
Music: Tomáš Vtípil, Petr Míka
DJing: Tomáš Soldán
Set design, puppets, costumes: Daria Gosteva
Production: Daniela Hekelová
Direction: Masakr Elsinor
Cast: Daria Gosteva, Václav Marhold, Vojtěch Hrabák, Tomáš Soldán, Petr Míka, Tomáš Vtípil
Photo by: Josef Chuchma