Dangerous Acts Starring the Unstable Elements of Belarus review

The Belarus Free Theatre was established in a spirit of opposition to the country's sinister premier Alexander Lukashenko, and the chilling neo-Soviet life-presidency he awarded himself in 1994. When a number of democratic challengers arose in the presidential elections of 2010, the obviously rigged vote returned Lukashenko to his complacent reign, and a younger generation of people in Belarus became angrily aware that they had known nothing other than this sub-Kremlin waxwork and his culture of mediocrity, philistinism, censorship and fear. Opposition candidates were imprisoned, their families intimidated, demonstrations were crushed; this HBO-produced documentary shows how in the year that followed , this theatrical company mounted a courageous outcry with their devised minimalist productions in Minsk, New York and the Edinburgh fringe. Perhaps a documentary can't quite reproduce the impact of their live presence, and this film is probably something for the small screen, but it is startling to see how political opposition and outrage were being mobilised, not primarily by journalism, or social media or established forms of protest, but by theatre. The Brookian "empty space" is filled with defiance.