Theatre confronts repression

Being Harold Pinter

Q Theatre, 597 High Street, Penrith, NSW

January 14-17, $42/$37

Bookings (02) 4723 7600; boxoffice@jspac.com.au or http://www.jspac.com.au

Sydney Festival and Company B in association with Q Theatre Company will present the Australian premiere of Being Harold Pinter by the acclaimed Belarus Free Theatre at the Q Theatre in Penrith January 14–17.

Being Harold Pinter is wild, anarchic theatre at its purest. Splicing transcripts from Belarusian political prisoners with scenes from Pinter's plays and extracts from his Nobel Prize speech, Being Harold Pinter is both funny and menacing, a powerful instance of life imitating art.

Belarus Free Theatre make their premiere visit to Australia; bringing their urgent and very vital theatre-making to this country. Everything about the production as been stripped back to the simplest and most crucial means of expression. Established in 2005, Belarus Free Theatre is an underground theatre project set up specifically to produce uncensored work in response to the authoritarian and brutal rule of President Alexander Lukashenko.

Since its inception, the company has performed in Belaurus, often in apartments and near-secret venues, as well as throughout Europe. In its relatively short history, Belarus Free Theatre company has attracted the attention and fierce support as patrons, of Czech President (and playwright) Vaclav Havel, playwrights Tom Stoppard, Harold Pinter and Arthur Kopit, and rock-and-roller Mick Jagger.

The company was founded by playwright Nikolai Khalezin and his wife, human rights activist Natalya Kolyada, initially as a playwriting drama competition for Belarusian writers. The project's main organisational resource is the communal initiative, Free Theatre, and the public association, the Belarusian Dramatists and Scenarists Guild, formed in 2004. The company is now a member of the European Theatre Convention.

Being Harold Pinter is performed in Russian with English surtitles. Please note that this play contains nudity and simulated violence.

From GLW issue 777