THE GOOD ANDREW BYRON CREATES
A LONG AND WINDING RUSSIAN
Andrew Byron frames his one man show The Good Russian within the historical context of 2018, when Sergei Skripal, a Russian expatriate who had worked as a double agent for MI6, the British Intelligence Agency, was found poisoned along with his daughter in his home in the cathedral city of Salisbury.
They had been exposed to a Novichok nerve agent developed by the KGB during the Soviet era, a favorite weapon of Putin’s Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU). Over thirty-seven Brits would be sickened after coming in contact with the toxin. Most, like Skripal and his daughter, would survive. One would not.
Nowadays, the GRU is much more circumspect in their assassinations, and Putin’s foes tend to fall out of windows (twenty-three, if you’re keeping track).
Byron plays a young Russian immigrant caught up in the investigation that the Salisbury poisoning triggers. In a police interrogation, he relates his childhood in Russia, how he left Siberia after a bookcase crushed his bibliophile parents, and managed to be smuggled into Britain with dreams of performing on stage, only to end up forced to work at a chicken farm, until he escaped to Salisbury, where he’s bullied by some, cared for by others, and finally finds himself a new family in the local community theatre.
Now, if this all sounds a bit rambling, let me tell you the show is certainly that. Bryon goes through fifteen characters in this stumbling Dickensian tale that comes across at times like David Copperchenko.
But what stands out about The Good Russian at the Stephanie Feury Studio Theatre is Andrew Byron’s sincere and truly moving performance as the immigrant seeking not only a new home, but a new life. His narrative is in desperate need of structure and editing, but there’s no denying that his telling of it is so heartfelt as to be heartrending, and this is the show’s saving grace.
The Good Russian
Stephanie Feury Studio Theatre, 5636 Melrose Ave
part of the Hollywood Fringe Festival
75 minutes
ends on June 28, 2025
for tickets, visit Good Russian
