L-R: Hayley Sullivan and Ryan Carter in Russian Transport. Photo credit: Nino Tamburri
It’s an adversarial beginning to Russian Transport as a mother and daughter snipe away at each other. This tense beginning of the play doesn’t sustain through Act 1, despite some well created humour and considerable bustling around the two level house; there is an episodic plod to the script before interval. However, if audiences are lulled by tradition, the watcher is shocked upright when Act 2 confronts complacency with constant hits of theme, relevance and humanity. It’s a striking contrast which ultimately makes Erika Sheffer’s Russian Transport a disturbing and angry watch.
The family, parents Diana and Misha, are Russian; transplanted to Brooklyn, they have an immigrant’s aspirations for the children, Mira and Alex, and their expectations and control are chafing. Misha has a car service business which is not doing well and Mira and Alex are expected to do their time in supporting the family enterprise. Into this fraught but stable family dynamic comes Boris, Diana’s brother. The interloper with an agenda and an early bonhomie upsets the tenuous balance.
The slow pace of the first act is mitigated by the slings and spits of Russian dialogue and the jabs and insults of some witty, if disturbing, lines. There is a weight of bigotry about the house in the language and disregard of niceties. Especially in a controlling Diana, played with a subtle chill and distance by Rebecca Rocheford Davies, who takes a tough love approach. Patriarchal and unforgiving, Berynn Schwerdt is physically commanding in the role of Misha with a relaxed way about him in the home but with an underlying, dangerous volatility.
Nathan Sapsford as Boris exudes unpredictability from his entrance when there is a pervasive air of deception about him. The character takes off his shirt off early and the textual implications of that kind of entitlement are well expressed by Sapsford in a grooming manipulation of power. Somewhat missing from his and Rocheford Davies interactions is a weariness of shared history, though the early implications of the long term sibling separation are effusive.
The daughter is a confused mess and Hayley Sullivan interprets her actions with a strong believability and nicely modulated surl. Mira is tightly watched and controlled but the son is a different matter. Alex, given a discreet underlying decency and oblivious naivety by Ryan Carter, is encouraged toward misogyny and sexual predation by the older men. He may not buy-in but is encouraged anyway and in him nests the themes and shock of this production.
In Act 1 of Russian Transport the scene changes are necessarily longer than usual but director Joseph Uchitel has orchestrated the visual to extend the story. However, in Act 2, Utchitel paces the show to hurl the audience into the emerging representations of motivational evil and the obscenity of exploited hopelessness and innocence. The resonances with the family reverberate as aspiration, control, volatility, chaos of behavior and naivety collide.
The two level set allows for clear place setting and ease of audience immersion, the lighting uses practical lamps very effectively. There are quite a few costume changes which are managed with ease by the polished cast who also smoothly negotiate all the business of preparing, eating and prop handling. From Benjamin Freeman comes a particularly affecting sound design. As the audience are story-led into the shocking themes the music becomes increasingly unfamiliar. Its discordancy and rising female pitch adding immeasurably to the impact of the show.
Russian Transport is a certainly a production to hit home; a production to stick with and which will stay with you.
Russian Transport
Fishy Productions and Darlinghurst Theatre Company
Cast: Ryan Carter, Hayley Sullivan, Rebecca Rocheford Davies, Nathan Sapsford and Berynn Schwerdt
Playwright: Erika Sheffer
Director: Joseph Uchitel
Designer: Anna Gardiner
Lighting Design: Martin Kinnane
Sound Design: Benjamin Freeman
9-31 March 2019
Darlinghurst Theatre, Sydney
