The Russian Office

Two of us went through The Russian Office, Denni Dennis’ Performance/Installation piece playing every half hour (6:30 – 9:30 p.m.) every night until the end of the festival. It is difficult to describe what happens during this half hour without ruining the surprise of it but a description of the process probably won’t hurt the experience.

The Russian Office is a short, bureaucratic walk through the passport registration process of a Russia that might exist in on the other end of the world but most certainly exists in the mind of its creator. As a Paper Pusher whose name you might not ever learn, Denni wears a soldier’s uniform, white face paint, and a ridiculously bushy mustache. He speaks no English. He sounds as though he’s speaking Russian, or some other Slavic language. He might be speaking Russian but I never got the opportunity to ask and, seeing as I don’t speak a language approximating the one he spoke, it was difficult to tell.

Dennis’ Bureaucrat – I will call him that until I discover his name – guides you to his office through a series of screening and searches. From time to time he encounters a neighbor from whom, male or female, he usually cowers. He is kind of shy and scared of something. Of what? I’m not sure. But it wasn’t necessary either. He involves you in his fear and by doing so makes carries it into the realm of humor.

He carries a satchel, out of which hangs women’s stockings. His office, which makes a lower east side studio look palatial, has clothing lines full of them too. Stockings yes, but slips, bras and assorted bits of lacey lingerie; all kind of cheap and some slightly torn. For reasons best discovered than explained, I got the sense that the Bureaucrat spent a lot of time thinking about women. Not in a lusty way, but as an objective diversion; one which might connect him to people. This tinges his humorous relationship to these objects and materials with an underlying sadness.

The piece is hysterical. The office is a spectacular mess but the Bureaucrat does his charming best to make you feel at home (Be warned: the vodka is real). The office many look hellishly Kafkaesque but it has been cleverly designed to accommodate both occupant and visitor. Dennis is a performer who enjoys pushing at his audience’s comfort zones. (I saw him perform a cabaret piece at last year’s festival that had the audience laughing and squirming.) There were several moments when the woman I went through the show with became a bit uncomfortable but when I spoke to her about it afterwards, she said she enjoyed the piece anyway. In this context, the discomfort is perfect.

Here is a man, alone in his office, doing a thankless job for little or no pay. It is not often we see where a clown comes from or where he spends most of his time. The Russian Office provides the audience a chance to see a clown perform his given task but also offers up the intimate tones of what happens behind the scenes and where the clown exists when you go away are no longer there to perform for. It’s a unique, funny, somewhat unsettling and oddly touching experience.

A word for the wise: Go in a large group; you’ll have a lot more fun that way. Bring your passport. And some chocolate. Or a pencil. Or some Chapstick. Or any bit of Americana. This is after all a bureaucracy. Things somehow move smoothly if the wheels are greased.

Office Hours:
9/13 through 9/27, by appointment from 6:30pm to 9:30pm
(no admittance 9/21, no admittance Mondays)

$10 One-Time Processing Fee
(Once you have been processed, you may return for free at any time. ID will be checked, so do not give your ticket to anyone else.)