Review Roundup: RUSSIAN TROLL FARM Opens at At Vineyard Theatre

Russian Troll Farm: A Workplace Comedy by Obie Award winner Sarah Gancher, directed by Tony Award winner Darko Tresnjak, has officially opened at Vineyard Theatre. The show will play a limited run until February 25, 2024.
 
The cast features Academy Award nominee Christine Lahti (“Chicago Hope,” “Evil”) as Ljuba, Renata Friedman (Zürich) as Masha, Haskell King (Kingfishers Catch Fire) as Egor, John Lavelle (Selma, The Graduate) as Steve and Hadi Tabbal (The Vagrant Trilogy) as Nikolai.

Steve likes Masha; Masha likes Nikolai; and Egor just wants to win a microwave. It’s another day at the office for the workers of St. Petersburg’s infamous (real-life) Internet Research Agency, whose job is manipulating social media to advance Russia’s agenda at home and abroad. Set in the lead-up to the 2016 U.S. presidential election, office comedy meets political satire in Sarah Gancher’s (Hundred Days, Richard Rodgers Award) shape-shifting examination of the power, seduction, and danger of a good story. A New York Times Critic’s Pick in its acclaimed online version, the NYC stage premiere is directed by Tony Award® winner Darko Tresnjak (A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder).

See what the critics are saying...

Jesse Green, The New York Times: Complicity was not of course possible in the no-longer-available 2020 streaming production, which required viewers to process it on the fly, in much the way they process social media, deciding for themselves what to laugh at — and what to ponder, repost or trash. Lacking that formal congruence, the live “Russian Troll Farm” has a temperature problem: Instead of cool, it feels overheated; instead of suggestive, prosaic.

Sara Holdren, Vulture: Yes, its characters work at a real-life organization, the Internet Research Agency in St. Petersburg, which does employ an army of coders and tweeters to sow discord on American social media. And yes, a good percentage of the tweets we see these characters firing off are real in that they were really created by Russian internet trolls and really deployed during the 2016 election. But as Gancher notes in the program, “The Office is not about paper, [and this] play is not about politics. It’s about the people.” While that aim — to unmask the trolls and flesh them out as humans — is potentially compelling, it doesn’t end up generating a consistently powerful engine for the play.

Robert Hofler, The Wrap: Before we get to what’s wrong with Russian characters sounding as if they lived and worked in Illinois, let’s tackle that word “comedy” in the play’s title. The only laughter escaping from the Vineyard Theatre these days is the forced variety that comes from an audience being embarrassed for the performers. You know when a director – in this case, Darko Tresnjak – is desperate to keep an audience’s attention. In “Russian Troll Farm,” two of the Russian trolls conduct their mundane conversation while seated in toilet stalls next to each other. We are spared sound effects, fortunately. Elsewhere, overacting and a bare chest dominate the stage.

Caroline Cao, New York Theatre Guide: Undeniably, a real-world sequel to Russian Troll Farm is playing out in real time. Consider the fascism that runs rampant on Twitter after billionaire Elon Musk’s takeover, while Russia wages its disinformation war alongside its military assault on Ukraine. It’s an uncomfortable thought that Gancher might find material there.