I had the pleasure this week of speaking with Polish theater director Magda Spezch, whose provocative 2024 production "Spy Girls," staged at the Estonian theater house Vaba Lava, will return this August as part of the Vabaduse Festival in Narva. The performance is a rare combination of cyber-espionage and stagecraft.

Estonian actors, who wear masks to conceal their identities, were required during the production's preparation phase to engage in real and fairly grueling espionage work. For three months, they posed as alluring young women on the Russian dating site Znakomstva, chatting with Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine, primarily around Mariupol.

As espionage trophies, the performance presents intimate photos of naked lower bodies obtained from the aggressor state's fighters. During the performance, a call is made to a previously "cultivated" contact so the audience can hear a Russian soldier's voice. Sometimes the call goes through, and sometimes it doesn't — something that can be said more broadly about any artistic or political provocation.

Ethically, the production is problematic — as even the theater's own website acknowledges. "Spy Girls" comes across as voyeuristic and dehumanizing, raising the question of whether, in deploying provocation, the political activist or artist risks becoming like the very object of their critique. Shouldn't an essential element of provocation be a degree of considered restraint — something that, if missing, could undermine the provocation altogether?

This tension between overcompensation and excessive sharpness almost always arises in provocative art and political activism. Often, such critiques are merely standard tactics used to silence the artist or activist.

At the same time, restraint can be the very quality that empowers a provocation. If one were to try defining "measured provocation," it might be something sharp enough to attract attention and spark debate, but measured enough not to cross the line of moral acceptability for the majority of the audience. A provocation that is too mild may go unnoticed; one that is too extreme may trigger backlash, undermining the original intent to spotlight an important, otherwise unspoken issue.

In Estonia, a recent example of activist overreach might be the slogan referencing the terrorist organization Hamas, displayed at a pro-Palestine demonstration. On the global stage, there are the climate activists who have thrown tomato soup at famous paintings.

History will judge, but for now it seems that waving around terrorist slogans and throwing soup at beloved artworks have been strategic missteps by activists — actions that allowed the stigmatization of the broader humanistic cause that likely motivated the protesters. Such tactics, in fact, make it easier for the mainstream to continue ignoring painful issues like Israel's disregard for civilian casualties or climate change.

A 2020 study by behavioral scientist Matthew Feinberg and his colleagues at the University of Toronto examined various protest methods and identified what they called the "activist's dilemma": radical protest methods draw more attention but can reduce public support — even among those who agree with the cause. The study found that restrained, non-violent, yet still provocative methods tend to be more successful. The public is more tolerant of protest when it doesn't directly harm people or values. The effectiveness of provocation depends not only on moderation but also on timing and whether a deeper purpose is perceived beyond merely attracting attention.

Director Magda Spezch said the aim of her project "Spy Girls" was to use sexually motivated conversations to gain insight into the worldview of Russian soldiers. "I wanted to see if any of them could, in some way, become our 'friend' — or if any of them might be capable of criticizing the system they're a part of," she said. According to Spezch, the actors encountered the full range of attitudes in their conversations with Russian soldiers — from inflated patriotism to deep depression — but no friendships were formed. Incidentally, some of those exchanges between theatrical spies and Russian soldiers are still ongoing today, a year later, with varying degrees of success.

When I ask myself whether "Spy Girls" is an example of dehumanizing excess or of so-called measured provocation, I tend to lean toward the latter — because the production seems to reflect a genuine interest not just in grabbing attention, but in discovering something deeper about the war itself.

Surprisingly, the act of mocking Russian soldiers came across as unexpectedly humanizing. It added a dimension to them that I hadn't recognized before. The young men in the aggressor state's uniforms — who had been tricked into sending explicit photos — seemed, during the performance, like just ordinary horny boys who grew up in the wrong environment and, for purely hormonal reasons, came off as crude and foolish.

This in no way diminishes their responsibility for participating in the aggression, but it does create a strange opportunity to maintain a human connection with the enemy — even if it's a vulgar one. And where else but on a theater stage could someone in Estonia repeatedly call Russian soldiers in Mariupol without attracting the unpleasant attention of the ISS? Provocative art and activism, when successful, can create just these kinds of unexpected direct lines of connection. At a time when treason cases are unusually frequent in Estonia, such a point of contact feels, oddly, like a small source of hope.

--

Follow ERR News on Facebook, Bluesky and X and never miss an update!