Eliot Circular

Love and Red Tape

From left: the hanging woman (Stella Ziegler ’15); the farmer (Perry Nelson ’16); Dermendzhieva (Corinne Bachaud ’14); Evgenia (Rosie Dempsey ’15); and the 56-year-old woman (Liz Groombridge ’16). [Not pictured: the linguistics professor (Spenser Silbey ’15); Zhoro (Andrew Watson ’14); and the bureaucrat (Colin Trevor ’15).] Photo by Heather Chan ’13

Romance and bureacuracy were recurring themes in The Suede Jacket, a thesis production put on last semester by Elizabeth Dinkova ’13. Written by Bulgarian playwright Stanislav Stratiev in 1977, the play revolves around a hapless linguistics professor who buys a bundlesome suede jacket. His tortuous attempts to tailor his new acquisition plunge him into the depths of Soviet-era bureaucracy. In the photo, cast members enact a shared dream of flying, escaping the monotonous life of women in a totalitarian socialist state.