I must admit I did not know what to expect at SpaceBridge, the bold theater piece now at La Mama. Scenographer and stage polymath Irina Kruzhilina aimed to tell the stories of Russian children forced to flee their country, with or without their families, because of their parents’ anti-Ukraine-war activities. Kruzhilina conceived and directed the show in partnership with 11 such refugee children aged 10 through 15 who are living mostly in New York City shelters, and eight Melpomene-minded American children of the same age.
Kruzhilina took inspiration for this cross-cultural experiment from the tragically short life of Samantha Smith, an American child peace activist who famously wrote to Russian leader Yuri Andropov in 1982 expressing her fear of nuclear war and was subsequently invited to visit the Soviet Union with her family. Ellen Lauren, the sole adult cast member, plays an emcee and facilitator role in the guise of a 53-year-old Smith. (The real Samantha Smith died in a plane crash with her father in 1985 at age 13).
Kids in Confusion
SpaceBridge swings from genre to genre, making it a little hard to get one’s bearings and know what kind of show it is. But given the subject of war and displacement from children’s perspective, a little audience confusion felt appropriate.
In one segment we see testimony of the kids on video, in Russian, interspersed with news reports, so we get a vivid sense of the world backdrop as individual children express what they’re afraid of, what they’ll miss, all the crucial little things that stitch together a young person’s reality in all its terror and joy.
In another, “Smith” and the kids put together a TV skit show offering advice on such matters as making shelter feel more like home and the painstaking and scary process of applying for asylum in the U.S.
The mood ranges from playful kids’-life shenanigans (slyly pocketing spending money by returning goods to a FiveBelow store) to heart-freezing: “I worry I will stay homeless and never find friends.” Equally bad, they worry that they will never be able to return home.
Crossing the SpaceBridge
In live action, the kids themselves, Russians and Americans, circle through an array of scenes and set pieces that artfully convey their situations and states of mind. The Russians’ mastery of English ranges from perfect to halting, but all successfully convey both the hopes and the pathos of their situations. On screen, passages in Russian are subtitled; on stage they’re translated live. The American kids perform enthusiastically, readily conveying the bonds they’ve formed with their Russian counterparts. Lauren as Smith both narrates and leads, exaggerated mannerisms recalling old-time children’s entertainers. It’s a curious style, harking back to a supposedly more innocent time in children’s entertainment and contributing to a disjointed feeling, as it seems too juvenile for these tweens and teens.
But ultimately, as a production made by and for kids under skillful adult guidance, and using the formidable technical capabilities of the Ellen Stewart Theatre, it makes a powerful statement, and one we need to hear.
SpaceBridge is a production of La Mama, En Garde Arts and Visual Echo in partnership with Under the Radar. Its world premiere runs at La Mama through January 11. Tickets are available online.
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