For Raya Bobrinskayamegapanalo, a hard-nosed newspaper journalist in Vladimir Putin’s Russia, being poisoned is a hazard of the job. She almost expects it to happen to her at some point.
When at last it does, along with the gushing blood and wrenching pain comes instant regret — not over her reporting, but over her 20-something daughter having to witness the attempt on her life.
“I’m so sorry,” Raya says. “I didn’t want you to be here for this, I really didn’t, I promise.”
Until this whoosh of oxygen to the plot, Erika Sheffer’s new play, “Vladimir,” is a very slow burn. From the end of the first act on, though, the drama crackles, full of tension, intrigue and poignancy.
Directed by Daniel Sullivan for Manhattan Theater Club, it is an apt play for this election season: a palimpsest meditation on hijacked democracy. In a program note, Sheffer mentions her distress at the “most recent rise of extremism and violence in American politics.” She began reading about Putin’s ascension, she adds, “and became interested in the point at which a society finds itself on the brink.”
“Who chooses to fight and who stays silent?” she asks.
In “Vladimir,” at New York City Center Stage I, the choice between courage and complacency tends to be an easy one for the restless, witty Raya (Francesca Faridany). Infuriated by Putin, driven by a love of her country, Raya cannot will herself to avert her gaze from abuse of power, however much safer that would be.
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