The Potemkin Play

In an unnamed country under the boot of an authoritarian regime, an embattled, firebrand theater company tries to mount a production of their new play The Inspection Tour, loosely based on Empress Catherine the Great’s trip to New Russia in 1787. When it becomes obvious that the play satirizes the hypocritical effrontery of politicians at the expense of their people, the government stops at nothing to put an end to the theater and its project. Joining the cast of human characters in this strange convoluted comedy are the freedoms of speech, thought, expression, and assembly, all of which come under existential threat. The Potemkin Play is a Russian nesting doll set of a tragicomedy, cramming together, and constantly confusing, the 21st and 18th centuries, the reality of appearances and the appearance of reality, and the hilariously terrible and the terribly hilarious.