Immigrant dreams curdle in ‘Russian Transport’
Human trafficking afflicts struggling family
The first thing you’ll notice when watching the Renaissance Theaterworks production of Erika Sheffer’s “Russian Transport” – which opened Saturday night under Laura Gordon’s direction – is the family pictures, filling the modest Brooklyn home of the Russian-Jewish immigrants who live there (set and lighting design by Jason Fassl).
Preceding and framing the nonstop fighting and the accompanying heartbreak as well as the pity and the sorrow, they’re a constant reminder that family matters to Diana (Elizabeth Ledo) and Misha (Reese Madigan), trying in their own bent way to do right by their children: 18-year-old Alex (Max Pink) and 14-year-old Mira (April Paul).
The parents fight because money is tight – and because each of them has failed in their jobs and their lives to fulfill their expectations, of themselves and each other. The siblings fight because they’re teenagers – even though it’s clear, in a play where the most important things don’t get said, that Mira admires her brother and that he’s got her back.
And, finally, they fight because they’re not sure what to do upon the arrival of the wolf at the door: 33-year-old Boris (Mark Puchinsky). Diana’s tall and handsome younger brother, Boris is newly arrived in America. But he’s no rube, and he’s less charming than one might imagine from a smile that never reaches his cold eyes.
Boris makes his living in sex trafficking involving Russian girls roughly Mira’s age –underscored here because an achingly vulnerable Paul also plays three of them. After Boris ropes Alex in
April Paul (right) is captivated by a visiting uncle (Mark Puchinsky) in "Russian Transport," performed by Renaissance Theaterworks.
with the promise of some cash on the side, we see him drive each of these girls from the airport toward their doom.
Alex had thought he was transporting mules delivering drugs; Pink is devastating in absorbing the truth of how he’s actually serving the uncle he vaguely resembles and could become, on a road to hell paved by those nightmarish trips from JFK to Jersey.
Misha and Diana know their world is crumbling around them.
But Madigan’s Misha – gruff because he’s shambling and broken, in a family he can’t feed – is powerless. Most scarred by years of Soviet privation, Ledo’s darkly humorous mother from hell has long embraced the creed that one does whatever one must to survive – even if that means destroying one’s offspring to save them.
Boris ruthlessly exploits these fault lines; the longer this slow burn of a play goes on, the more terrifying the physically imposing Puchinsky becomes.
The young pay the heaviest price; they almost always do. In a uniformly excellent cast, it’s Paul and Pink I’ll most remember, trying and failing to protect each other in a world where they feel ever smaller and more alone – much like those forlorn Russian girls, each one a prisoner of the American dream.
“Russian Transport” continues through Feb. 11 at the Broadway Studio Theatre, 158 N. Broadway. For tickets, visit www.r-t-w.com. Read more about this production at TapMilwaukee.com.