A highly acclaimed satirical play about Russian President Vladimir Putin and his allies facing a war crimes tribunal is making waves in Bulgaria, a country historically close to Russia.
Titled The Hague, the play by Ukrainian author Sasha Denisova recounts the story of an orphaned teenager from Mariupol who imagines how Russia’s top brass is brought to justice over its devastating war in Ukraine.
After premiering in Poland and the US earlier this year, celebrated guest director Galin Stoev adapted the play for a Bulgarian audience, seeking to challenge the Balkan country’s pro-Kremlin sentiment.
Photo: AFP
In the drama currently staged at Sofia’s National Theatre, Putin is portrayed by a woman — Bulgarian actor Radena Valkanova — donning a sleek black suit and red shoes.
“If we can’t watch The Hague trial in real life, let’s watch it in the theater,” Denisova said of the scene she penned before the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Putin over the alleged unlawful deportation of Ukrainian children.
In the same way as Charlie Chaplin mocked Nazi leader Adolf Hitler on screen, “Putin must be laughed at without mercy,” she said, stressing the power of satire.
Historically close to Russia, EU and NATO member Bulgaria still has many citizens nostalgic for what they see as the glory days of the Russian empire and the Soviet Union. The nostalgia also refers to Russia as a protector for the Slavic people of Bulgaria from Ottoman rule.
Studies suggesting that 30 percent of Bulgarians are pro-Putin — despite Moscow’s relentless war on Ukraine — encouraged Stoev in his determination to stage an “eye-opening” adaptation of the play in Sofia. And he seems to have hit a mark.
“The audience is deeply moved and asks questions,” Stoev said, after the actors received another round of standing ovations from the crowd.
However, the main challenge lies in constantly updating the script to reflect the current state of the war.
Yulian Vergov — who plays Wagner Group mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin — said working with a changing script was challenging, as both the aborted mutiny and Prigozhin’s death in a plane crash had to be “newly added” while leaving his fate in doubt.
“The play is fiction, but after all you play a real character, who then dies during rehearsals — this is impressive,” Vergov said.
The troupe also has to stay on top of the latest rumors about the state of health of Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov and the Russian president.
Amid all the accolades, detractors have criticized the play as a “biased propaganda vaudeville,” with one actor reportedly declining a role for ideological reasons.
“With this show, we’re inviting spectators to reflect on real events” and draw their own conclusions, theatre director Vasil Vasilev countered.
“Politicization is just the opposite: when we’re told what to think and do,” he said.
Putin impersonator Valkanova said she was glad the play has sparked “very polarized opinions,” deeming them “the purpose of this type of theater.”
“I am happy that there is something like this to wake up people’s thinking — something that we lack as a nation,” she said.
After a stopover in the French city of Toulouse, where Stoev heads the national drama center, he hopes to stage the play in the Bulgarian countryside, known to be susceptible to pro-Russian sentiment.
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
Asian perspectives of the US have shifted from a country once perceived as a force of “moral legitimacy” to something akin to “a landlord seeking rent,” Singaporean Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen (黃永宏) said on the sidelines of an international security meeting. Ng said in a round-table discussion at the Munich Security Conference in Germany that assumptions undertaken in the years after the end of World War II have fundamentally changed. One example is that from the time of former US president John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address more than 60 years ago, the image of the US was of a country
BLIND COST CUTTING: A DOGE push to lay off 2,000 energy department workers resulted in hundreds of staff at a nuclear security agency being fired — then ‘unfired’ US President Donald Trump’s administration has halted the firings of hundreds of federal employees who were tasked with working on the nation’s nuclear weapons programs, in an about-face that has left workers confused and experts cautioning that the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE’s) blind cost cutting would put communities at risk. Three US officials who spoke to The Associated Press said up to 350 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) were abruptly laid off late on Thursday, with some losing access to e-mail before they’d learned they were fired, only to try to enter their offices on Friday morning
DEFENSE UPHEAVAL: Trump was also to remove the first woman to lead a military service, as well as the judge advocates general for the army, navy and air force US President Donald Trump on Friday fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, and pushed out five other admirals and generals in an unprecedented shake-up of US military leadership. Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that he would nominate former lieutenant general Dan “Razin” Caine to succeed Brown, breaking with tradition by pulling someone out of retirement for the first time to become the top military officer. The president would also replace the head of the US Navy, a position held by Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead a military service,
RSS