World
An Exiled Theater With a Warning for Europe
LONDON — When the gamers of the Belarus Free Theater started engaged on “Canines of Europe” three years in the past, they thought it was a play a couple of dystopia.
Set in 2049, it imagines the continent minimize in half by a wall. On one aspect sits a Russian superstate, the place a dictator has eradicated virtually all opposition, and the place folks can not communicate their native languages and even carry out people dances. On the opposite aspect sits a Europe that failed to understand the Russian risk, or cease it from absorbing Belarus, Ukraine, the Baltic States and past.
But at a rehearsal in London final month the day earlier than Russia invaded Ukraine, the play’s nightmare world didn’t really feel so far-fetched.
Maryna Yakubovich, an actor within the manufacturing, which opens Thursday on the Barbican theater in London, mentioned that rehearsing the play had typically felt like a premonition. “It’s, like, ‘Oh my God, it’s began to occur,” she mentioned.
Natalia Kaliada, one of many Belarus Free Theater’s founders, mentioned that when she and her husband, Nicolai Khalezin, determined to stage the play, they thought it will be a “warning shot” in regards to the risks of undemocratic leaders left unchecked. However deliberate performances in London and New York in 2020 had been postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic. Now that warning shot seems to be too late.
Because the battle in Ukraine enters its third week, the Belarus Free Theater’s efficiency could seem unintentionally well timed. However it’s only the corporate’s newest try in its 17-year existence to warn about rising authoritarianism in Jap Europe.
The corporate is aware of these risks all too effectively. Since forming in 2005, it has confronted repression in Belarus, which is dominated by President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko, who is called “Europe’s final dictator” partially for his authorities’s clampdown on opposition and its stifling of free expression. The troupe has lengthy been successfully banned from performing in Belarus, but it surely continued to take action in secret venues in Minsk, the capital, even after Kaliada and Khalezin had been compelled into exile greater than a decade in the past. The couple settled in London — the place they developed shut ties to theaters together with the Younger Vic and the Almeida — however continued rehearsing with actors in Belarus through Skype.
These clandestine reveals, in venues together with a transformed automobile storage that after belonged to the American Embassy, additionally gained the troupe high-profile supporters in america. In 2015, The New York Occasions’s chief theater critic, Ben Brantley, visited the corporate in Minsk, and praised its “spirit of defiant, exultant fraternity” including that this was one thing “you hardly ever discover among the many younger today in money-driven, shockproof Manhattan.”
Now, even that window to carry out in Minsk has closed. The theater’s complete 16-member performing troupe fled Belarus final yr to keep away from potential jail time for opposing Lukashenko’s regime.
The Belarus Free Theater was now homeless, Kaliada mentioned. “We’re refugees.”
She added that she had hoped its members could be granted asylum in Britain, so they may arrange a refugee-led theater there, however the course of can take years and asylum candidates are virtually all the time banned from working. After its four-performance run on the Barbican, the corporate would almost certainly arrange base in Warsaw, a metropolis with quite a few refugees from each Belarus and Ukraine, Kaliada mentioned, however added {that a} ultimate determination had not but been made.
The corporate’s funds are precarious, Kaliada mentioned, although she had a transparent imaginative and prescient for the long run. In addition to discovering a efficiency house, the corporate would set up a faculty the place its members may give performing lessons to refugee kids, she mentioned. All of its future performs could be live-streamed again to Belarus, so the corporate would maintain reaching folks there.
“It’s a fairly robust time,” Kaliada mentioned. “We’re attempting to unravel many points without delay.”
The corporate’s experiences over the previous two years present how shortly fortunes can change in Jap Europe. In August 2020, Belarus — a rustic of some 9 million folks — appeared on the verge of a turning level after Lukashenko declared victory in a vote extensively dismissed as fraudulent, resulting in mass avenue protests. It was a “lovely, highly effective,” second, Kaliada mentioned: It felt like her nation was waking from a foul dream, she mentioned.
Then a brutal police crackdown towards the protesters introduced these hopes to an finish.
A number of of the corporate’s actors had been arrested through the interval of repression across the election. Sveta Sugako, the corporate’s manufacturing supervisor, mentioned she spent 5 days in jail in a tiny cell with 35 different girls. None of them got any meals or consuming water for 3 days, she added. After Sugako refused to signal a confession saying she had taken half within the demonstrations, a police officer grabbed her and choked her, she mentioned.
Sugako mentioned she had not wished to go away Belarus, even after that have. “I used to be prepared to sit down and wait in jail,” she mentioned, however different Belarus Free Theater members persuaded her to go, stating that the corporate had no future if all of its actors had been behind bars.
Russia-Ukraine Warfare: Key Issues to Know
On the latest rehearsal in London, the ambiance was muted. When not performing, the actors checked their telephones for information from dwelling.
“After all we’ve left Belarus, bodily,” Yakubovich mentioned, “however mentally we’re nonetheless there.” The information was “by no means good,” she added.
Then there was the scenario in Ukraine to take care of. Russia was utilizing Belarus as a staging floor for its looming invasion, and lots of firm members had fled Belarus through Ukraine, or had pals and family members there. Marichka Marczyk, a Ukrainian musician who performs a reside soundtrack for the present, mentioned she had simply acquired a textual content message from her brother in Kyiv, Ukraine, with directions if he was killed within the combating: “Burn my physique/scatter the ashes,” he wrote.
Roman Liubyi, a Ukrainian video animator engaged on the manufacturing, mentioned his spouse and 5-year-old daughter had been additionally in Kyiv. He was contemplating leaving rehearsals to get them out if a battle started, he mentioned, after which becoming a member of any struggle towards Russia.
Whereas her colleagues grappled with the information, Kaliada, a founding father of the corporate, watched from the sidelines.
She may image Russia absorbing each Belarus and Ukraine, she mentioned, simply because it did in “Canines of Europe.” But even when the corporate confronted a few years of exile, “Belarus is with us,” she mentioned. “We can have a house.”
World
New Lonely Island Song ‘Sushi Glory Hole’ Premieres on ‘SNL’; Raps About Secret Sushi Spots Around NYC
In the first Lonely Island song of the 50th season of “SNL,” the beloved trio of Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone and Akiva Schaffer debuted “Sushi Glory Hole,” a humorous take on a fictional app where you can find sushi in a hole in a bathroom around New York.
“SNL” alumna Maya Rudolph, who has been portraying presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris during the new season, was on hand for the video. “Gentleman, what do you have for us today?” she asked in the video opener.
“Sushi glory hole,” rapped Samberg. “Imagine that. Instead of getting strange [expletive] you’ll be getting a snack.” A long refrain of “Hear us out, hear us out, hear us out,” played on loop as the trio tried to get others on board with their idea.
Dressed as 1980s businessmen, the Lonely Island members, and Bowen Yang, rapped about sushi in bathrooms, with suggestive lyrics, singing, “So drop to your knees and get ready for some fish.” The digital short featured funny evocative imagery of slices of sushi being presented through holes in bathroom walls. The trio rapped, “Hit the bathroom stall, and find a sushi-sized hole in the bathroom wall.”
“Hit the map,” they said, showing a phone with a lit-up map with “SGH” locations all around Manhattan, where one could find a sushi glory hole. They rapped on, defending the unorthodox food-related business idea, saying, “You got nothing to fear. It’s not weird. It’s sushi being through a hole in the wall.”
They rapped about the different ideal circumstances for a “SGH.” Samberg sang about sushi glory holes in nightclubs and how it’s better than eating in the middle of a street. “Make a wish and prepare for some shockingly high-grade fish.”
“Don’t leave, hear us out. No substitutions or special requests,” they said.
Stand-up comedian Nate Bargatze was this episode’s guest and musical group Coldplay was the musical guest.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei declared in a rare sermon Friday that his country’s ballistic missile attack on Israel earlier this week was “legal and legitimate” and that the “resistance in the region will not back down even with the killing of its leaders.”
The public address from Khamenei was his first during Friday prayers in Tehran in nearly five years, according to the AFP.
Khamenei said Iran will not “procrastinate nor act hastily to carry out its duty” in going after Israel, Reuters reports.
The news agency cited him as saying that Tuesday’s barrage of nearly 200 missiles fired by Iran at Israel was “legal and legitimate” and the minimum punishment for Israel’s “crimes.”
IRAN WARNS OF ‘DECISIVE RESPONSE’ IF ISRAEL CROSSES ‘RED LINES’
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks during Friday Prayers and a commemoration ceremony of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Tehran, Iran, on Oct. 4. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/West Asia News Agency/Reuters)
“The resistance in the region will not back down even with the killing of its leaders,” Khamenei reportedly added, mentioning recently slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah during the speech.
The remarks came as the Israel Defense Forces announced Friday that Mohammad Rashid Sakafi, the commander of Hezbollah’s Communications Unit, was killed in an airstrike in Beirut, Lebanon.
“Sakafi was a senior Hezbollah terrorist, who was responsible for the communications unit since 2000,” the IDF wrote on X. “Sakafi invested significant efforts to develop communication capabilities between all of Hezbollah’s units.”
ISRAEL BANS UN SECRETARY-GENERAL OVER ANTI-ISRAEL ACTIONS
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Friday that Iran’s missile attack on Israel this week was “legal and legitimate,” Reuters reports. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/West Asia News Agency/Reuters)
National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said earlier this week that the Iranian missile attack on Israel was “defeated and ineffective” and that the U.S. military coordinated with the IDF to repel the strikes.
“U.S. naval destroyers joined Israeli Air Defense units in firing interceptors to shoot down inbound missiles. President Biden and Vice President Harris monitored the attack and the response from the White House Situation Room, joined in person and remotely by their national security team,” Sullivan said during a briefing.
Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile system intercepts rockets during the missile attack, as seen from Ashkelon, Israel, on Tuesday, Oct. 1. (Reuters/Amir Cohen)
“This is a significant escalation by Iran, a significant event, and it is equally significant that we were able to step up with Israel and create a situation in which no one was killed in this attack in Israel… We are now going to look at what the appropriate next steps are to secure, first and foremost, American interests and then to promote stability to the maximum extent possible as we go forward,” he added.
Fox News Digital’s Michael Dorgan contributed to this report.
The war in Gaza, which started on 7 October last year, has seen more than 41,000 Palestinians killed and decimated the Strip. Almost 100 Israelis are still being held hostage by Hamas, with fewer than 70 believed to be alive.
Thousands of people have staged protests in capitals across Europe in support of Palestine in the run-up to the first anniversary of the war on 7 October.
Huge rallies took place in several major European cities, with rallies expected to continue over the weekend and peak on Monday, the date of the anniversary.
Italy
In Rome, several thousand demonstrated peacefully until a smaller group tried to push the rally toward the centre of the city, in spite of a ban by local authorities who refused to authorize protests, citing security concerns.
Some protesters, dressed in black and with their faces covered threw stones, bottles and paper bombs at the police, who responded with tear gas and water cannons, eventually dispersing the crowd.
At least 30 law enforcement officers and three demonstrators were injured in the clashes, local media reported.
The rally in Rome had been calm earlier, with people chanting “Free Palestine, Free Lebanon,” waving Palestinian flags and holding banners calling for an immediate stop to the conflict.
United Kingdom
In London, thousands marched through the capital to Downing Street amid a heavy police presence.
The atmosphere was tense as pro-Palestinian protesters and counterdemonstrators, some holding Israeli flags, passed one another.
Scuffles broke out as police officers pushed back activists trying to get past a cordon.
At least 17 people were arrested on suspicion of public order offences, supporting a proscribed organisation and assault, the Metropolitan Police said.
Spain
Thousands also took to the streets of Madrid to demand a ceasefire in Gaza.
The protests were peaceful and there were no reported incidents of altercations with police.
“Outrage at this situation, thousands and thousands of people killed in Gaza, now in Lebanon, there are already more than 2,000, more than 10,000 people missing. This has to be stopped one way or another,” said Enrique Quintanilla from the ‘Disarm Madrid’ group.
Germany
In the northern of Hamburg, about 950 people staged a peaceful demonstration with many waving Palestinian and Lebanese flags and chanting “Stop the Genocide,” the DPA news agency reported, citing a count by police.
Two smaller pro-Israeli counterdemonstrations took place without incident, it said.
ADVERTISEMENTSerbia
A smaller protest of around 200 people happened in Belgrade with protesters chanting “Free Palestine” and expressing their anger at their government’s support for Israel.
“The main message is that we, citizens of Serbia and Belgrade, are against arms exports to Israel. The Republic of Serbia is exporting arms to Israel. Since October 7 last year, the value of weapons exported to Israel from Serbia is at least 20 million euros. We are against that,” said protest organiser, Mihajlo Nikolic.
Rallies were also planned in several other countries across Europe including Greece, the Netherlands, Denmark and Switzerland.
Increased security
Security forces in several countries warned of heightened levels of alert in major cities, amid concerns that the conflict in the Middle East could inspire new terror attacks in Europe or that the protests could turn violent.
ADVERTISEMENTPro-Palestinian protests calling for an immediate cease-fire have repeatedly taken place across Europe and around the globe in the past year and have often turned violent with confrontations between demonstrators and law enforcement officers.
A bloody year
On 7 October last year, Hamas launched a surprise attack into Israel, killing 1,200 Israelis, taking 250 people hostage and setting off a war with Israel that has shattered much of the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.
More than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed since then in Gaza, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not differentiate between fighters and civilians.
Nearly 100 Israeli hostages remain in Gaza, with fewer than 70 believed to be alive.
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