Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.There’s only ever one woman on stage (actress Alisa Khazanova) in The Last Word but she stands for many. This potent piece by Anna Narinskaya is built largely from the final statements of female defendants in Vladimir Putin’s Russia, speeches delivered in the courtroom where, paradoxically, people accused of dissent can speak comparatively freely. Narinskaya and director Maxim Didenko lift some of their words on to a stage, giving them a greater platform and a chance to connect with the wider world. What emerges is moving, enraging but defiant too: a statement of solidarity and shared humanity in the face of repression.“Why are you so afraid of me?” asks Sasha Skochilenko, who was sentenced for distributing anti-war leaflets in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “What possible danger could I present to society?” “Remember that fear corrodes the soul,” says Alla Gutnikova, a Russian journalist placed under house arrest, who quotes multiple writers and poets in her statement. “Your silence will not protect you.”We hear testimony from Yulia Tsvetkova, imprisoned for distributing pornography after she posted drawings of vulvas online. Zarifa Sautieva, a former museum director who protested about border changes between Chechnya and Ingushetia, describes the conditions in a pre-trial detention centre. The words and experiences of Natalya Gorbanevskaya, who protested against the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, remind us that the brutality on view today has deep roots.Didenko frames the work in a multimedia staging, unscrolling the women’s words in surtitles (the work is performed in English with surtitles also in English) on a transparent screen as Khazanova speaks. Video cameras zoom in on her face and cast multiple images of her, and sculpting the space by having her sit at a sewing machine or press herself against the back wall. This brings dynamism to what could otherwise be a fairly static piece, but some of the video work begins to feel overly busy.Ivan Ivashkin, who accompanies Khazanova onstage in raw, expressive dance, broadens the context. Through movement, he represents the gradual development from a crawling baby to a stiff, uniformed figure of authority. It’s a trajectory symbolic of a patriarchal system, of the misogyny involved in stifling women’s voices and perhaps too of the tragedy of mothers whose sons have been lost to war — the show’s final image is of Khazanova standing, Pietà-like, holding a bloodied sheet.The movement sometimes distracts from the quiet potency of Khazanova’s performance. Even so, this is a powerful, eloquent piece of theatre that celebrates the bravery and dignity of these women and the role of art in resisting and even overcoming the dehumanisation of oppression.★★★★☆To September 21, marylebonetheatre.com
