THE RUSSIAN AND THE JEW is a political fairy tale that explores anti-Semitism and misogyny through a female friendship in the Soviet Union in 1968, underlining the eternal question of fidelity to one's self, one's partner, and one's country.
The play underlines the eternal question of fidelity oneself, to one's partner and to one's country. Drawing on autobiographical and historical material, this piece blends and revisits Russian fairy tales, literature and politics through the eyes of two women. Drawing on themes from Anna Karenina alongside ubiquitous Vysotsky bootlegs of the time, the play begins when Jews in the former USSR started to apply for coveted exit visas in the late ‘60s when the first letters from America and Beatles tapes started to break through the borders.
This piece investigates what it meant (and what it continues to mean) to be a Jew, a woman and a citizen.
