Pussy Riot: Riot Days
Summerhall
Neil Cooper
*****
THE pink balaclava Maria Alyokhina wears at the start of this ferocious free adaptation of the Russian activist and artist’s urgent memoir that has given this show its title has become a potent totem of resistance that has changed the face of anti-authoritarian activism, possibly forever. This followed Alyokhina’s arrest and imprisonment in 2012 for ‘banal hooiganism’ alongside two of her comrades following an anti-Putin ‘punk prayer’ in a Moscow orthodox church.
Six years on, Pussy Riot continue to invade public consciousness, as they did in the recent World Cup final held in Moscow when members of the collective ran onto the pitch. They continue to fight the power with this 50-minute music-theatre assault, which puts Alyokhina at the centre of a high-octane collage of electronica, martial drumming and skronky sax. This provides the backdrop to a barrage of archive footage, projected situationist style slogans and righteous declaiming as the onstage quartet tell Alyokhina and Pussy Riot’s story, from protest to prison and her eventual release after 20 months.
Performed in Russian with English subtitles, and knitted together by Russian theatre director Yury Muravitsky, Riot Days is no pose. Alyokhina defied a travel ban to be in Edinburgh, and remains in the frontline of a movement that has captured the radical imagination. The quartet Alyokhina leads onstage are as well-drilled in the show’s agit-prop execution in a way that probably hasn’t been seen since post-industrial 1980s auteurs Test Dept took a similar stance.
At one point Alyokhina and co sport hoodies and shades, squaring up for something resembling a rap battle as the rhythm pounds behind them. ‘Anyone can be Pussy Riot’ a caption declares on the screen to cheers of solidarity responding to the slogan’s call to arms. Now is probably as good a time as any. The revolution starts here.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here