There are people who police divisions between art vs. life, the enchanted vs. routine—among what are called interactional frames. To break frames or to contest them—stepping out of character, deconstructing the rules--can challenge claims not only about what constitutes reality and fantasy, but also about social hierarchies (who can claim the podium, or drop the curtain?). Yet, such breaks can also perform and animate authority. This talk investigates events of frame rupture that are complicated by hierarchies among Moscow teachers and acting students, Urals prisoners and guards, Russian TV psychics and their American, European or local skeptics—among experts and those who find themselves reduced to bumpkins or pawns, treated as if they do not know, or have yet to learn to distinguish frames, to discern “what is going on here?” In exploring the politics of breaking frame, we ask how aesthetics of estrangement intersect the politics of communicative contact.