In a pre-show talk, directors Nicolai Khalezin and Natalia Kaliada, founders of the company Belarus Free Theatre, who left their country as refugees 12 years ago to escape Alexander Lukashenko’s regime, sounded subdued as they talked about brutality in Belarus and the escalating war in Ukraine and warned us of what we were about to see on stage: “It’s not an easygoing show, it’s very metaphorical, it makes you think, you will not be relaxed.” With a wan smile, Kaliada recommended we have a drink beforehand.
Dogs of Europe – at the Barbican for four performances – is three-and-a-quarter hours long: a surreal, punitive, unforgettable marathon. Performed in Belarusian with English surtitles, it is based on a dystopian novel published in 2017 by Alhierd Bacharevič, set in 2049 and now banned in Belarus. A text projected on to the back of the stage explains there has been a “war of 2022-2025” after which the European continent has become “politically bipolar” with a League of European states opposed by a New Reich – a frighteningly plausible fantasy.
