Review: Shattered Globe Theatre's VLADIMIR at Theater Wit

In the face of power and corruption, how can individuals respond? In a world where facts are buried and voices are silenced, how can stories make an impact? As it turns out, in a time of increasing relevance, Shattered Globe Theatre has an impactful story to tell, opening its 36th season with the Midwest premiere of Erika Sheffer’s Vladimir. Directed by Shattered Globe Ensemble Member Lou Contey, Vladimir is a powerful and potent story of defiance, strength, and sacrifice.

The year is 2004. It’s been four years since Vladimir Putin was made President of Russia and a sham election just happened. Raya (Rebecca Jordan) is an independent journalist who’s made a reputation for herself as being headstrong, stubborn, and self-described annoying. She’s a high-profile controversial writer with a way of gaining people’s trust in order to tell their stories, particularly in covering the war in Chechnya, including the story of a young woman named Chovka (Kseniya Janyan). But her unrelenting hunt for the story that could make a tangible difference in countering the authoritarian reign puts a constant target on her back, one that her daughter Galina (Juliana Liscio) pleads for her to leave behind. As she works on uncovering a story surrounding the country’s largest tax refund and potential government embezzlement, she enlists the help of financial analyst Yevgeny (Tristan Odenkirk) and alienates her good friend and former editor Kostya (Adam Schulmerich) — all while risking her own life. 

Jordan grounds the show with ice in her veins and fire in her heart. When her determination and veil of steel start to crack in the second act, Jordan adds much depth to the balancing act that is the impulse to publish the truth and make a difference for her country against trying to be a good mother. Schulmerich’s performance as Kostya is extremely measured, capturing the nuances of a man who cares deeply about Raya and is calculating the risks of this work against his own morals and beliefs when he leaves the independent journal to work at the Kremlin-sanctioned television station with Andrei (Steve Peebles). Odenkirk nails Yevgeny’s growth from an apprehensive man to someone committed to exposing the truth, despite knowing the costs to his life and family. Even as Raya falters, Yevgeny demands action — and that is where Odenkirk shines as the true lion that he is. 

While the stories are driven by facts, there are many emotions in this drama — ones of fear, exasperation, pain, love. Janyan delivers a particularly moving monologue about how Chovka lost her heart and her hope, with a stoic yet righteous anger at the world that hits all the right marks, as piercing as it is. As Galina, Liscio does a phenomenal job capturing the desperation of a daughter simply wanting to see her mother grow old, reframing the political stories Raya is determined to tell against their reality and the raw fragility of life and family. 

It’s not just the strength of the acting that keeps you on the edge of your seat. The scene transitions elevate the whole atmosphere and heighten the tension as masked and hooded people shine red lights and move Joe Shermoly’s sets and Nga Sze Chan’s props around with a sense of urgency and rigidity, with dramatic lighting design from Shelley Strasser and original music by Christopher Kriz that adds an appropriately chilling beat as the pounding backdrop. 

Most of the dialogue is spoken without an accent, but it is when the characters are interacting with Americans — namely with American businessman Jim (Drew Schad) and at Raya’s book tour in New York City — that we see Elise Kauzlaric’s work as Dialect Coach come into play. Switching into appropriate accents is a tasteful contrasting touch that regrounds the show in the country and times where it is set. 

A central tension in the story is Chovka’s accusation that Raya’s attempt at humanizing the everyday people impacted by the war through her journalism actually dehumanizes these real human lives into mere characters — an accusation that haunts and rattles her. Raya also grapples with the impact of her work, questioning whether the stories she writes can actually bring about change and motivate people to act or whether they simply make people feel like reading her book is activism enough. 

While this political thriller is indeed a fictionalized story with characters, the story it tells is familiar and rooted in a long global history of silencing the press and suppressing the truth — not just under the authoritarian government of Russia, but even in the democracy that is the United States of America. Raya’s character is partly inspired by Anna Politkovskaya, a Russian journalist who reported on human rights abuses by the Russian military in Chechnya and was assassinated in 2006. The stories behind this story are real — and that is worth remembering and honoring as we leave the theater and continue the fight for rights, justice, and peace. As Raya says, maybe our only weapon is simple acts by simple people.

Shattered Globe Theatre’s Midwest premiere of Vladimir plays through November 14, 2026 at Theater Wit (1229 W. Belmont Ave.). 

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