Verdict: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (reviewed Sunday 6 April 2025).
A poor man’s sense of entitlement is the central theme of Lyudmila Razumovskaya’s explosive play Dear Elena Sergeevna. The titular character is a schoolteacher. Four teenage students come to surprise her on her birthday , a little rough around the edges and still with a lot to learn. But this is no sweet version of To Sir With Love. Set in Soviet Russia, the students gradually reveal their dark intentions: unsatisfied with what she’s taught them about the virtue of hard work, they challenge her both verbally and physically, demanding that she grants access to their exam papers so they can cheat their way into being accepted into university. It’s a bit like emotionally blackmailing your teacher to intervene on your behalf to alter your HSC results; for them, the stakes are much higher because not going to uni will surely condemn them to a life of extreme hardship, and possibly death, if they have no prospects other than being conscripted into the army.
This sense of desperation and results at-all-costs is excruciatingly gut wrenching to watch. The intimate seating at Old Fitz offers no respite nor escape as we witness violence, sexual assault and harassment. It is triggering and unforgiving in its depiction of the lowest forms of human nature. The casting and direction are brilliant, eliciting performances that make you breath “thank God!” when it’s finally all over. There was not a dry eye left in the house at the performance we reviewed; many were left utterly shattered and speechless at what they had just witnessed. “It just felt too real, and disturbing,” was the consensus.
Teodora Matović is our schoolteacher; modest, respectable, single. Matović plays the conflicting of emotions of reluctance and maternal concern, cautiously welcoming the students into her home and feeding them a hearty meal, in spite of her misgivings that she has a pressing priority to be at the hospital to visit her frail mother.
Toby Carey is Pascha, a promising student with who feels entitled to fix his exam results so he can go to university just like all the other academics in his family. His logic and sense of justification is infuriatingly flawed, intellectualising why Elena should forgo all her principles to help him out. To him, Elena’s integrity is a non-issue because Russia has a bigger problem in how it treats its citizens. If she won’t help him out, then she is part of the system, the problem, and his sense of ‘duty’ in attacking her is downright sickening.
The role of Pascha is challenging because he had the biggest arc to navigate, reduced to a passive bystander paralysed with shame while his girlfriend is assaulted and raped. The event is preceded by the schoolteacher’s complete mental breakdown, finally shaking him out of his delusional beliefs.
Faisal Hamza is convincing as a narcissistic POS in the role of Volodya, full of grandeur delusions about his own self importance. He’s the one that goads the others to stay in the game even when they’ve become painfully aware that they have gone too far.
Madeline Li is Lida, a Bambi-eyed scantily dressed teenager who regards mature women like Elena as ‘boring’; like her peers, she is full of youthful arrogance about her own sense of entitlement: “‘if my mother works hard to buy me nice clothes, why should I care?”. Lida learns the hardest lesson of all in a scene is tragic and brutal.
Harry Gilchrist is Vitya, a good-looking young man who is a victim of being easily brainwashed by his classmates. He cannot debate with clever words like they do but he possesses a sensitivity and naivety that has been exploited, and so, like a schoolyard bully, he taunts Elena with false flattery and pretence of remorse. Curiously, it takes him a while to grasp what he has done to Lida. You kind of feel sorry for people like him, unaware of their own stupidity in forging their own path towards destruction.
Distinguished Romanian director Clara Vodă together with the cast pour their souls into this production; a debut at Old Fitz by Last Waltz Productions.
Dear Elena Sergeevna is playing at Old Fitz til 11 April. For tickets and showtimes, go to https://www.oldfitztheatre.com.au/dear-elena-sergeevna
CREDITS
Cast and Creative Team
Producing Company: Last Waltz Productions
Playwright: Lyudmila Razumovskaya
Director: Clara Voda
Producer: Madeline Li
Designer: Dan Potra
Stage Manager: Justin Li
Vocal Coach: Simon Masterton
Movement Coordinator: Troy Honeysett
Cast: Toby Carey, Harry Gilchrist, Faisal Hamza, Madeline Li, Teodora Matović
Understudy: James Thorn
Images
Noah David Perry