‘Patriots’: A play about 1990s Russia debuts on Broadway

In form and content, “Patriots” feels like a historical Shakespearen play. There are dozens of characters, political treachery and, at the center of it all, a large, flawed and, ultimately tragic, character: Boris Berezovsky, played by American actor Michael Stuhlbarg.

“It really feels like a modern Shakespeare play,” Stuhlbarg said. “There are remnants of ‘Shylock,’ remnants of “Richard the Third.””

“Patriots” is a play debuting on Broadway on Monday by Peter Morgan, the creator of the Netflix series, “The Crown,” about the British monarchy. Similarly, “Patriots” is based on real characters; it’s set in 1990s Russia and delves into the intersection of billionaires and politics.

Berezovsky is a billionaire, Stuhlbarg explained about his character.

“He got involved with the oil industry and the automobile industry and he was involved with [Russian airlines] Aeroflot.”

He also owned ORTV, the most-important television station in Russia. And he becomes a kingmaker — backing a low-level political functionary and former KGB agent, Vladimir Putin — who is now the president of Russia.

Berezovsky helped Putin rise to power, but discovered that he couldn’t control him.

The play’s director Rupert Goold said that playwright Morgan’s themes really areShakespearean.

“How power is enabled, how absolute power corrupts absolutely,” he explained. “Maybe the central theme of the whole play is loyalty and betrayal and different ideas of that; betrayal in some way being the opposite of patriotism.”

Along the way, the audience is introduced to a variety of figures — among them, oligarch Roman Abramovich and KGB agent-turned-dissident Alexander Litvinenko. They have differing ideas of what patriotism means, explained Will Keen, who plays Putin.

“What is patriotism beyond a profound love of the country?” Keen asked. “And it’s possible to do all sorts of things, in the name of love, both good and bad. So, I think that every character in the play is profoundly attached, in a sort of a really essential telluric way to the idea of Russia.”

Researching the characters

The actors researched their characters beyond the script. Stuhlbarg watched videos of Berezovsky, a mathematician who got a master’s degree in decision-making theory before he made the decision to become a businessman.

“There was a wonderful Frontline interview that was conducted about, either a year or a few months before he died, [in] which he was very animated and very candid,” the actor said. “I listened to his voice. I watched his mannerisms.”

At the start of the play, Stuhlbarg pulls off a theatrical tour de force, juggling several phone calls at once — snarling at associates, purring to his mistress, trying unsuccessfully to bribe the then-deputy mayor of St. Petersburg, Putin.

Meanwhile, Will Keen watched videos of Putin, as well, not just as the man we now know, but as an awkward, insecure nonentity in the past. Keen said that in Morgan’s script, Putin’s physical journey was part of the character’s emotional journey.

“There’s this sequence that Peter’s written into it; of him rehearsing in a mirror, sort of how to wear the face of the leader,” Keen explained. “And that sense of his performativeness actually is something else that I’ve observed and has interested me a lot. The sense of a kind of mask that he has put on. It’s a role.”

Russia invaded Ukraine right before “Patriots” started rehearsals for its first production at the Almeida Theatre in London two years ago. 

Director Rupert Goold said, “What had been a historical play that then we’d been centering on the character Boris suddenly became a much more urgent contemporary political play.”

Some say that it seems even more urgent now — between Alexei Navalny’s death and Putin’s reelection. In the play, an exiled Berezovsky tells Alexander Litvineko’s widow how it’s important to resist Putin. He tells her he must “rid the country we all love of that monster. Putin was my mistake. Getting rid of him is my responsibility.”

Despite his efforts, Berezovsky never was able to do so. And he died under suspicious circumstances.

Goold said Berezovsky was “the facilitator of Putin. And Putin’s rise is definitely on his hands, but he was also the canary down the mineshaft about seeing what was coming.” And, in 2024, of what’s to come.