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InVladimir, the titular monster is nowhere and everywhere.
Sheffer, unlike Morgan in most ways, isnt interested in fleshing out the man behind the authoritarian mask.
Particularly, shes gripped by questions of storytelling and truth.
Is it worth it?
Doing something so utterly pointless with your life?
Thats a playwright interrogating herself, and Sheffer doesnt bother to disguise the parallel.
Chovka has just accused Raisa (Raya to her friends) of having no real skin in the game.
Do you think Id be a good character?
Is that why you want to talk?
The year for most of the play is 2004.
Of course, there was no election, not really (Why is everyone playing along?
asks Raya, grinding her teeth), and meanwhile, the Second Chechen War is raging.
The Russian army is slaughtering civilians.
Its 20 years ago today.
Its horror, horror, horror.
Vladimirs strength lies in its moral core.
Last I checked it was a key feature of democracy.
When its legitimate, retorts Kostya.
When everyones arguing, but they all know the ending thats not democracy, thats theater.
I kept waiting for play and poetry to merge.
Still, theres enough vitality inVladimirs characters (itspeople, Raya might correct me) to pull us along.
Especially as the stakes rise, personal confrontations are where her writing feels most muscular.
Later, she holds onto her mother again at her own wedding.
Promise me, she says.
Promise me youll get old.
That one man should have such power, she says.
Not great intellectual, not insightful.
Only talent is finding ugliness and knowing how to use it.
And yet this little man take up so much space.
There it is the howl that Sheffer aspired to, achieved.
Vladimiris at MTC at New York City Center through November 10.
