An explosion of social media overwhelmed the American public leading up to the 2016 election between Hilary Clinton and Donald Trump. Facebook, Twitter and Instagram became information battlefields that anyone could lob statements into, no matter how slanderous or ludicrous. Difficult discussions devolved into all-caps screaming matches that left each side more committed to their own views, more hostile to the other’s, and more entrenched in a culture war that is still raging.
But it turns out that the embers of internal U.S. dissent and resentment were transformed into infernos by legions of Russian trolls: professional internet posters inserting millions of extremist, provocative and incendiary messages into already crowded news streams, simply to sow chaos among the electorate. With enough discord, hatred and fake news swirling around the states, the Russians thought they could install their choice of U.S. president. And they did.
When playwright Sarah Gancher realized exactly how the American public had been played, she wondered about those trolls — their lives, motivations and personalities — typing away on keyboards halfway around the world. In her play Russian Troll Farm, she imagines a workplace not so different from a typical American company, filled with slackers, mean bosses, malcontents, frustrated creatives, and directors on high. Forward Theater Company brings those personalities to vivid life with this smart play about how gullible we are, performed in The Playhouse at Overture Center through May 8.
Although Russian Troll Farm was written for the stage, it was quickly adapted to Zoom during the pandemic lockdown, so it could be viewed online before the 2020 election. Forward is producing the first fully staged, live version of the show, and with the midterms looming later this year, it feels sadly relevant.
Director Jen Uphoff Gray is in her element with this piece, packed with politics and scenes that vacillate between real and absurd, romantic and horrific, Shakespearian and Brechtian. She directs a superb group of actors as they tweet through their monotonous days, finding a range of ways to connect with their work and each other. Augmented by numerous video projections (designed by Kathy Wittman), the cubicle-mates at the Internet Research Agency dissect the elements of storytelling, reveal their inner dramas, take on imaginary personas in worlds they would rather inhabit, construct stories they need in their own lives, and find some cold comfort in their relentless jobs of communicating only to confuse.
Nikolai (Scott Haden) is a frustrated screenwriter who is trying to inject some craft into the character arcs he’s creating, but his tough-as-nails boss Ljuba (Sarah Day) is much more concerned about meeting quotas and seeing results. As the brash bully on the playground who wins every time he makes you lose your cool, Steve (Andrew Rathgeber) is the constant antagonist — the only one ideally suited for this mean-spirited work. Steve is locked in a longstanding battle of wills with the bizarrely calm and controlled Egor (Casem AbuLughod), who pumps out tweets like a machine and plans complicated pranks with steely resolve. And Masha (Cassandra Bissell) is the new kid on the block, a former journalist who has just been transferred from the department of fake news to the troll unit. As the guys vie for her interest, she finds satisfaction in creating stories that stick, like the actual Pizzagate conspiracy theory that linked Hillary Clinton to a fictional child sex-trafficking ring that operated through a series of underground tunnels connected to pizza parlors, Washington, D.C., the Mexican border, and Disney World.
While each of these trolls begins the play as an identifiable, straightforward type, Gancher shows off her own storytelling prowess by switching theatrical genres each time we focus on a new character. In the first close-up, Bissell and Haden make a convincing willing-but-unwilling couple as slightly needy Masha begins to spend more time with pleasant, milquetoast Nikolai and a forbidden office romance blossoms. Alternately smitten, sniping and satiated by their doomed relationship, the actors lean into the rom-com gone wrong crossed with a Russian tragedy.
In another tone shift, we get a peek inside Egor’s obsession with tweeting using Black personas. As the laser-focused genius who is so emotionally controlled that he seems like he might explode at any moment, AbuLughod is both frightening and incredibly funny. With his shifting eyes and furtive typing, he gives Egor a rich backstory without saying a word. But when Ljuba demands that he abandon the Black characters he’s created — his only real community — it’s as if he has been unplugged from his only lifeline.
And then there’s the eternally malicious, scheming Steve. Behind his office pest persona lives a Russian hardliner immersed in his own superhero fantasy. His inner monologue sounds like a classical revenge tragedy and looks like an extreme video game. In addition to impressing with some fancy footwork and juggling of weaponry, Rathgeber is gallingly effective at pushing the audience’s buttons as Steve is in vexing his co-workers. In the end, his “burn it all down” rage seems strikingly familiar — all that’s missing are the tiki torches.
But the golden matryoshka doll goes to Sarah Day, who begins the play as the tyrant, longing for the discipline and methods of persuasion used in her former profession with the KGB. By the end of her extended monologue, chronicling her young life under Soviet rule at the height of the Cold War, the audience not only understands Ljuba, we ache for her messy, complicated, brutal past. Her desperation for companionship at the end of the play is palpable.
Despite all this glorious character exploration, there are some pitfalls that Russian Troll Farm cannot avoid. First, typing in front of a computer screen is the dullest act someone can perform onstage and there is a lot of it in the play. Second, the author’s stylized, deep dives into backstory in the second act feel overly long, as if she’s fallen in love with the conceit and just can’t stop writing. The play would benefit greatly from some careful editing.
But Russian Troll Farm’s final moments contain a delightful twist. Although there is little dramatic tension as we creep up to election night — the end of the play is a given — listening to the network suits reciting election results is still horrifying. As the audience watches in stony silence, the band of Russian trolls rejoice in their victory and we are left to decide who is really to blame: the liars or those who believed them.