It’s the early days of perestroika in St. Petersburg and Evgeny (Adam Chanler-Berat), the son of a local Communist Party boss turned budding oligarch, is struggling to please his dad with unconvincing attempts to shake down small-time capitalists for protection money. His first target is a former school buddy named Dmitri (Steven Boyer), who’s ostensibly selling Western goods from an abandoned storefront but using stolen KGB equipment to spy on a popular singer (Rebecca Naomi Jones) who’s recently returned home after defecting to the U.S.

Lauren Yee’s comedy Mother Russia plumbs the humor, pathos, and hypocrisy in the days just after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Director Leigh Silverman milks individual moments with comic precision, from Evgeny and Dmitri’s rhapsodic first encounter with McDonald’s food (“Is this what capitalism tastes like?” one asks as they lick each other’s fingers) to the Tarantino-esque climax. The play elevates the goofiness by paying special attention to the way that Russia will always be Russia, no matter who happens to be in charge and how they try to crush the populace.

That resilience is embodied by the scene-stealing David Turner as Mother Russia herself, here depicted as a sassy failed actress who in one Chekhov revival, she tells us, “I played all the cherries”). Unlike the other characters, she’s neither a dreamer nor a striver — and remains casually dismissive of the very suggestion of a happy ending. “There’s not enough of me in this play,” she tells us at one point. She’s right. But even with its title character stuck on the periphery, Mother Russia is a darkly comic gem. ★★★★☆

MOTHER RUSSIA
Signature Theatre, Off Broadway
Running time: 90 minutes (with no intermission)
Tickets on sale through March 22 for $74 to $147