Grigory Rasputin (Jake Ryan Lozano) charms Tzarina Alix (Zina Zinchenko) and the audience in immersive show on Governors Island (photo by Maria Baranova)
THE DEATH OF RASPUTIN
Governors Island
The Arts Center at Governors Island (LMCC Building 110)
Thursday – Sunday through June 28, $44-$250
www.deathofrasputin.com
“Hail, all that is light,” Father Grigory Rasputin (Jake Ryan Lozano) says amid all the darkness in The Death of Rasputin.
Theater collective Artemis Is Burning places the audience right in the middle of the mysterious story of the real-life infamous Russian mystic in the immersive experience, running at LMCC’s Arts Center at Governors Island through June 28.
Born a peasant in Siberia in January 1869, Grigory Rasputin became a wandering monk who managed to embed himself with the Romanov royal family for more than a decade, having a major impact on the Russian empire. The seventy-five-minute show is set in 1916 in St. Petersburg, where Rasputin (Jake Ryan Lozano) is treating the young son of Tzar Nicholas II (Audrey Tchoukoua) and his wife, the Tzarina Alix (Zina Zinchenko). While part of Russia considers Rasputin a saint, others believe he is a dangerous heretic.
Audience members, who are strongly encouraged to dress in black to maintain an eerie, dark atmosphere, go from room to room, following either specific characters or plot threads. The narrative unfolds in twenty-one scenes over eleven acts, and it is impossible to see it all; be prepared to be involved in one room while hearing screaming, shouting, singing, and other sounds from other spaces, but that’s fine. As in the immersive-theater standard-bearer, Sleep No More, everyone comes together for the grand finale.
As you go from Rasputin’s apartment, Katya’s Bar, and the palace to a study, a military tent, and a foreboding dungeon, you’ll meet such fictional and real characters as Dread Uncle Duke Nikolai Nikolavich (Louis Butelli), the commander of the Russian military, who is planning on assassinating Rasputin; wealthy heir Felix Yusupov (Adam Griffith), who has returned to Russia after a year away and is immediately repelled by Rasputin while also falling for bar owner Katarina (Ginger Kearns); Olga Lohktina (Manatsu Tanaka), Dread Uncle’s wife who worships Rasputin; palace maid Petra (Lucy York Struever), who is a spy for the revolution, sending secret messages via radio transmission with bartender Fyodor (Cashton Rehklau); and Father Iliodor (Tim Creavin), who quickly realizes it will take more than prayer to bring Rasputin down.
Eulyn Colette Hufkie’s period costumes range from lush and elegant to wild and natty, with moody, often reddish lighting by Devin Cameron and cacophonic sound by Stephen Dobbie. Lili Teplan’s sets are intricately designed, many with chairs and couches; the choreography, which has to work around the unpredictable audience with care, is by James Finnemore.
Creator and coirector Ashley Brett Chipman, creative producer and codirector Hope Youngblood, cowriter and assistant artistic director Julia Sharpe, and cowriter David Campbell always have something going on — be prepared to grab a cord and chant, read through desk diaries (“Whenever I dream there is blood.”), hold Father Iliodor’s hands in solemn prayer, or pour drinks for the Tzar and Tazarina. And don’t pull out your cellphone; there is no photography or video — you’re required to put a privacy sticker over the lens of your phone — and checking messages would affect the ensemble and the audience, since everyone is so close together.
Lozano is ferociously energetic as Rasputin, a role previously portrayed by such actors as John Belushi on Saturday Night Live, Rhys Ifans in The King’s Man, Lionel Barrymore in Rasputin and the Empress, and Christopher Lee in the 1966 Hammer horror film The Mad Monk. Tanaka is hypnotic as Lohktina, and Creavin is steadfast as Father Iliodor.
As with all such immersive shows (Then She Fell, The Grand Paradise, Empire Travel Agency), the more you put into it, the more you’ll get out of it. And, as in real life, be careful where you put your trust and faith.
[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]