Born in the USSR

The extraordinary Belarus Free Theatre's Trash Cuisine draws on conversations with executioners, inmates and their families to tell individual stories of capital punishment. Producer Natalia Kaliada acknowledges the subject is not an easy one to tackle, saying: “The challenge was finding the entry point for the audience as it's such a complex issue to take home with you.” It is a challenge also faced by Ines Wurth's Who Wants to Kill Yulia Tymoshenko? and Badac Theatre Company's Anna, which complete a trio of productions coming to this year's Fringe that highlight the human rights abuses prevalent in former USSR countries, and serve as a call to action for their audience.

The exiled Belarus Free Theatre, last seen at the Fringe in 2011 with the unforgettable Minsk, grounded their approach in research trips to Rwanda, Uganda, Bangkok and Malaysia. The motivation for the piece, however, was found closer to home. Belarus is the last remaining European country to retain the death penalty; its most recent use being in March 2012, with the execution of Dzmitry Kanavalau and Uladzislau Kavaliou, accused of plotting the bombing of the Minsk subway in April 2011. According to the International Federation for Human Rights, the guilt of the men had not been established due to conflicting testimonies as well as Kanavalau's assertion that his confession was obtained using torture; and that the evidence on which the men were condemned had been destroyed by the court.

While Belarus Free Theatre tell the stories of powerless young men like Kanavalau and Kavaliou, Ines Wurth uses a higher profile figure to command the audience's attention in Who Wants to Kill Yulia Tymoshenko?

Wurth's production places the former Ukranian president in a cell with a young woman who has been framed for murder. She explains how this device expounds the issues: “Having her sharing a cell in prison is fictitious, as in reality she is in solitary, so this was for dramatic purposes. The play focuses on the relationship between Yulia and her cellmate; two women from different worlds. Yulia realises this is who she is fighting for; the whole purpose of the Orange Revolution of 2004 was democracy for people like this girl. It's in this way Yulia's politics and ideals come through. It's not preaching at the audience, it's all done through the story of two women.”

Following the life, work and assassination of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, Badac Theatre Company's Anna focuses on those who report human rights failings, and are themselves persecuted as a result. The site-specific piece is performed in a corridor around a lift, recreating her assasination in the lift of her apartment block in 2006.

Writer and director Steve Lambert explains the significance of this aspect of the production: “[Anna] is attempting to drive home to the audience, by speaking directly to them, the fact that although human rights abuses are reported to them they don't really listen to, or act upon, the reports they get. The play is being performed in a corridor with the audience lined up against both walls and the action takes place between them. It is very intimate.”

Mark Bevan, programme director for Amnesty Scotland, believes the Fringe is the perfect forum in which to engage an audience thus: “Artists tend to know the value of freedom of expression more than most, and the Edinburgh Festival has always felt like a very natural place to talk about the right to say or laugh at whatever you wish without fear of reprisal. You simply couldn’t do the Edinburgh Fringe in Moscow.”

For Natalia Kaliada, the separation between audience, artists and subject matter is a barrier to be broken down: “The role of the arts and the media in combating human rights abuses is a vital one, but it's very important to keep it coming back to the fact that this is about human rights, and we are humans. Artists often say it is our role to observe, not to participate, but that is not enough – to participate is our job as humans.”

Details of how to enter the Amnesty Freedom of Expression, in association with Fest, can be found at http://www.amnesty.org.uk/content.asp?CategoryID=10535 Who Wants to Kill Yulia Tymoshenko? (Ines Wurth Presents)- 1-25 August, Assembly Roxy https://www.edfringe.com/whats-on/theatre/who-wants-to-kill-yulia-tymoshenko Trash Cuisine (Belarus Free Theatre) – 19-26 August, Pleasance Courtyard https://www.edfringe.com/whats-on/theatre/trash-cuisine Anna (Badac Theatre Company) – 2-25 August, Summerhall https://www.edfringe.com/whats-on/theatre/anna

http://www.amnesty.org.uk/content.asp?CategoryID=10535