A teenage boy lies on a bare iron bed in a rehabilitation centre, so drugged he can barely speak, in a shocking attempt by his parents to cure him — of being gay. The scene is the horrifying climax of a bold new drama playing to packed audiences at one of Moscow’s top theatres, though its future is under threat by city prosecutors. Based on the real-life story of a Russian teenager, the play’s sympathetic view of the boy’s coming out is testing a Russian law banning any dissemination of ‘homosexual propaganda’ to minors. Entitled ‘All the Shades of Blue’ — ‘blue’ is slang for gay in Russian — it tells the teenager’s story of how he first fell for a boy on a school trip. ‘I couldn’t take my eyes off his body, I was really impressed… I thought he must be a good kisser,’ the actor says. But all hell breaks loose when the teenager tells his parents he is gay. ‘You’ve really

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