Preface: On the Way
I start this blog from a Polish restaurant in Warsaw airport where I am meeting my producing associate Anastasiya Yevchenko, who has organised a whole array of meetings and shows for me in Ukraine. Shortly we head to the border and the night train to Kyiv where I will meet her parents and have another meal, I feel sure. Please note I weighed xx stone when I left my home this morning at 4am.
When I enquired of West End producer Brian Hook if there was any usefulness in my visiting Ukraine, as he has done a couple of times. His response was a very big YES and drafting in Anastasiya to be my guide. Why did I want to come? and What use might I be?
Our news channels are filled with the latest Trump Putin lovefest with Ukraine and Europe trying to find sensible ways to work towards peace following the 2nd invasion of Ukraine by Russia. But it is a long way away, and news cycles have switched to Epstein or Farage or other domestic issues. The defence of Ukraine is the defence of Europe, and I wanted to be able to shout out more, from a knowledge base. Someone said to me last night ‘Oh it’s a shame what’s happened to them’. That emotion is not enough to change the hearts and minds of the UK and Europe, nor to truly welcome and support the phenomenal array of displaced people from this Country who have to try and make their life in the UK.
[Edit 1: Please note by the end of my blog I have learned to type names differently, but for the moment I share my thoughts in the old way]
I also learned from Brian, and by some simple research, that there is a vibrant theatre and entertainment scene in Ukraine, despite nightly air raid warnings and curfews. The theatres are full and it is phenomenal what is being created to give joy, entertainment, and in some cases real healing through the arts. I look forward to seeing shows for myself, if Anastasiya and I can snaffle some last-minute tickets.
When she reached out to producers and theatre directors they have offered a phenomenal welcome. They don’t know me from Adam. I am not a celebrity visitor, but I come to learn and to see what ‘hyphen’ skills I can offer. Maybe there are connections which I can help to make which will allow more projects to be created, existing projects to have an international life, and new work to be co-created. I hope it will also give me the chance to shout about what has been created here and goes on being created.
My third reason for visiting is to see how I can then connect back into the Ukrainian creative community in the UK, and those who are bringing amazing Ukrainian theatre, plays, poetry and music to life in the UK. I have the privilege to lead Producers’ Pool and Producers’ Persona, along with my own Intensive producing course in London. So when I return I can shout out and see who in the UK could/should be part of these networks too.
I have never been to a war zone before, and it has been fascinating talking with specialist insurance companies about the essential travel & health cover I needed to get here. I’ve never been in an air raid before, but I sense it will give me a greater perspective of what it must have been like to be in the UK during the 2nd World War. I did not know that British men are now joining international divisions to volunteer to fight at the front. Until last week I didn’t know about Jeeps for Peace https://jeepsforpeace.org.uk/ which has already acquired and driven over 630 jeeps to Lviv to become part of the hardware of resistance at the front line.
For now I will stop, and over the next few days make short Facebook posts which, at a quiet time I can add to this blog to reflect on who & what I am seeing and learning.
[Edit 2: I have not moved the Facebook posts into this blog – 3250 words is enough for anyone]
I am not fearful of being physically hit/hurt, although it may happen. I do go into this journey knowing that my heart will be broken at times and I will be affected by the courage and determination of those who live here 24/7. Thank you for welcoming me. Slava Ukraini.
Part 2: On the train to Lviv
As I arrived from the overnight sleeper in Kyiv and checked into my hotel I was shocked. Here is a vibrant city with the sun shining and people going about their daily business. It was Sunday and as I get my first tour of the city, down to the new glass bridge over to the Soviet Triumphal arch which, with the help of a graffiti artist, now has a giant crack in its structure, I passed hundreds of people enjoying the Spring as the snow began to melt.
As I was to learn, there are many English-speaking delegations and guests in my hotel. I overheard snatches of conversations about Museum safety, the speed of one salesman’s particular piece of devastating arsenal, and discussions on what can be learned from Ukraine’s sophisticated air raid alarm system from another European Country on the Russian border. These were men and women here to work, and here to support the Ukraine government and their military to overcome the invasion.
Over the 4 days of meetings, I encountered deep ancient pride in Ukraine, an understanding of the power of the arts to give joy and healing, the use of artistic practice to allow a community to be heard and individual stories to be released onto paper, or into music, or dance.
The human deprivations of the winter were being put behind them in the sunlight. The pain and fear was masked in black humour. I even learned a Ukrainian joke told to me by someone who had gone through a winter of power and water cuts. A woman finds her flat has power and water so she stays in to wash her hair. “Why stay in” a friend asks. “Well tomorrow I may not have power or a head”. That fatalistic honesty felt aligned to my own way of seeing the world.
Noone knows when a missile or drone may get through the air defences. Noone knows if their commuter train or their hospital will be targeted in a cruel attempt to break the will of the people. It is causing deep trauma but also deep determination.
My second air raid alarm sounded as I was heading to a meeting with a Military unit. I felt safe that my guides and my hosts would know what to do. Well, it was a warm welcome, a meeting with tea, and maybe because of the alarm, a box of Milk Tray was added to the meeting table. Life goes on.
At the theatre we are asked to turn off our mobile phones and are instructed on procedure if/when an air raid warning sounds. One night it happened to us in a house full, very conveniently as the first act ended. Everyone quietly moved down to the basement lobby of the theatre, or took their coats and went out into the street for a cigarette. After 20 minutes or so the all clear sounded and every seat in the house was refilled with the audience.
[Ukrainians head these pre-show announcements, but I’m not sure UK or Ukrainian audiences head the request to turn off their phones – like every star driven theatre space, social media posts were more important for some than watching the play in shared darkness. Hey ho that’s life]
There are practical considerations. Some plays are dropped from the repertoire because of Russian links. Actors will suddenly get call up papers and recasting or rescheduling is essential. And no one thinks more than a few days ahead [except the amazing international producers I was meeting who are planning European tours of classic and new work into 2027 and beyond].
Stars take their performances to the front. A young highly acclaimed band perform anywhere in the yellow zone, behind the main fighting. And injured veterans return to find that they can be part of writing and acting workshops, bringing their voices to be heard across Ukraine and the world. That does not mean they will be writing about the horrors of war, or that every play is set in a trench. Far from it. They are using writing to explore, as most writers, something bubbling inside them about their lives or lived experience at any time of their life. Or they may be exploring a passion or futuristic surreal world of their imagination.
I heard throughout my meetings with Artistic Directors and producers the term Theatre Boom – and every seat is sold out in all the theatres, and I presume concert halls and opera houses. Young people continue to go on school trips [I write this in a carriage of a train taking me to Lviv and there are a host of young teenagers heading there in the next door carriage].
The Spring brings hope, but also 4 years on, a sad deep concern that this war may never end. A realisation of media and global war fatigue. A sense that the new battlegrounds of the Middle East will leave the Ukrainian defence weakened against this invasion of Europe.
The daily posts on Facebook from Angelica Shalagina, https://www.facebook.com/meri.stown a Kyiv resident, encapsulate in a few words the hope but also the sense of tired reality. For some young people the endless nightly fear and practical impossibility make it that they have to consider leaving their homeland, at least for a while for respite and healing. Trauma is being embedded into the very DNA of a nation and it will take generations for Ukraine, as a free nation when the Russians are vanquished, to recover. All those that I met know that the arts are absolutely vital to that healing.
Russia has stolen so much – even the often-used name ‘The’ Ukraine suggests a region of the Empire not a proud nation invaded. I have so much to learn about Ukraine’s history and inventions. Unlike Scotland, Ukraine does not yet have a tea towel which shows all the amazing Scots who invented things in the world. https://www.lochlomondgifthouse.com/products/whas-like-us-tea-towel Those who are too often called British or even English.
I was being told that the inventor of the first manned space rocket was a Ukrainian who had been sent for incarceration and torture by the Russians in a Gulag, until someone realised he was a phenomenal engineer. This broken man was then taken to be a servant of the Empire and create the first “Russian” rocket. Tonight I’m going to the Kerosene bar in Lviv. No I didn’t know that Kerosene was developed in parallel by a Canadian geologist and a Lviv pharmacist. And don’t forget Whatsapp – invented by a Ukrainian. I want to encourage someone to make the Ukrainian tea towel.
I am visiting this Country to talk about producing. I had a few meetings, as I might in the UK, where I was told by experts that there weren’t real producers here. It is true that Ukraine does not have commercial theatre producers, yet. But I ran a workshop with 17 people who ranged from State Theatre managers through to independent artists. Almost all introduced themselves as producers. The City of Kyiv has a phenomenal rich array of producers, who are doing exactly what it says on the packet – they are producing. The conversation around the workshop touched on exactly the same agenda items as I have every workshop in the UK. We explored marketing, business structures, fundraising & finance, international and local co-production and collaboration, the challenge of being noticed with new work in a crowded world, and the ways to extend the life of a creative work.
I can’t wait to get back to work more with Ukrainian theatremakers.
No other nation on earth can say that almost every possible audience member or collaborator knows the colours of their flag, and the name of their president.
Few nations have artists leading the country, or where culture is so embedded in the battleground for freedom and global health. There is a danger that theatre programmers and audiences may expect every piece of theatre to be set in a trench, but that can be overcome by bringing the vibrant array of artistic creations to a wider world.
I will be talking to UK Producers’ Pool, my colleagues in the Korean and Japanese theatre markets I am working with, and the Maltese theatre producers I start working with in April. There are trench-fatigue myths to be overcome, and 20, maybe 200, years of Soviet propaganda to be shattered. But as Angelica said recently on Facebook – Kyiv was a city before Moscow was a swamp. Slava Ukraini
Part 3 – In Krakow after Lviv
Over 36 hours I met with the British Embassy in Lviv, and had the pleasure to see a piece by Ivan Franko reimagined by Ukrainian new wave director Ivan Uryvskyi at the Les Kurbas Theatre and have 3 body related meetings.
I had three meetings which explored the body, and the role of art and artists exploring our world, our health, our future through movement, I met with an extraordinary practitioner, Mykola Naboka, who has brought his international LeCoq training and movement pedagogy. He is rediscovering and championing the avante garde work of Les Korbas from a gloriously welcoming warehouse studio home. I met with two premier dancers who are exploring creating a new school/company which could give independent dancers and dance artists an opportunity to create and share new work across Ukraine and the world. And then I went to visit the Superhuman Centre.
The Superhuman Centre “is a nationwide modern center for war trauma, specializing in prosthetics, reconstructive surgery, rehabilitation, and psychological support for adults and children affected by the war since 2022. All services are free” Since opening the first centre in Lviv in April 2023, they have gone on to develop two more centres in Dnipro (scheduled to open in June) and Odesa. https://superhumans.com/en/
Anastasiya and I were welcomed by a member of staff and by a highly respected theatre producer whose husband moved from acting to serving in the military, and is now undertaking the phenomenal task of rehabilitation with two new legs. It was humbling to see the determination we witnessed as people go through the painful and painstaking work of re-learning the skills last learned as a child….and bloody hell those wheel chairs move fast when someone is heading out for a cigarette.
This visit is set against the unfathomable decision by the IOC to allow the invading and genocidal country of russia to parade its flag at an international opening ceremony. Thank you to all those Countries who boycotted the event. I see that Ukrainian athletes are gaining medals as their comrades in arms are gaining back territory from putins horrific attacks.
[Edit 3: As I have been here, and as I have developed this blog, I have learned many things including acts of resistance and rebellion in everyday life. From this point on the names of putin, russia, and anyone or anything from that invading country will be in lower case. It is a small act of defiance, and for me a mark of respect for the Ukrainians who are defending not just their own Country, but also the gateway to Europe].
On my last night in Kyiv I took a trip to the hotel’s sauna – safe underground and very quiet at the end of the evening. There I met someone from Finland who was in the City understanding the air raid warning systems. I have, like many of you I am sure, been following the statesmanlike diplomatic and impassioned speeches of Alexander Stubb, the President of Finland. He makes it crystal clear why the pushing back of putin’s armies is essential for the safety of Europe. russia will not stop reforming the soviet empire unless all of Europe resists in whatever ways are necessary.
(As the ramblings and actions of trump become ever more dangerous, people like President Stubb and Prime Minister Mark Carney in Canada show how to lead from the front, like President Zelensky, with powerful, careful, accessible messages. Thank you for speaking from the heart, albeit with the deep involvement of scriptwriters)
I left Superhumans grateful that Prince Harry and the Invictus Games are connected to this facility and that it will be championed around Europe. It has much to teach us all about the best ways to empower and facilitate independent living for those who have been dis-abled by war or life.
In the UK we still have theatres and staff/management which dis-able our customers and our participants and staff. Ukraine’s theatres and structures are, like ours, often old and stuck in their physical and practical ways. When the war is over, and the whole of Ukraine is rid of russia, there will be a massive amount of work needed to ‘able’ spaces and employment worlds.
I suspect, when the visitors have left Superhuman, there are men and women (maybe not the children) who are uttering very loud four letter words (or how ever many Ukrainian letters is needed to express the pain and frustration of learning to walk again). The camaraderie between the veterans is an essential part of the healing, and so is the therapy and support offered to the families of those who are undergoing very very long treatment.
In the rehabilitation, folk are learning to walk and run again. They are learning to use a new hand to play chess. They are exploring swimming for maybe the first time. I wonder whether future chess and Olympic champions will come from those who were mere amateurs/beginners before, but this rehabilitation has made them determined champions. I hope so.
EndNote
On the 7th I wrote an honest, but sad, Facebook post, the only one I will integrate here.
“I have failed to be a political citizen throughout my student 1970s through to my nearly retired 2020s. Until now.
For the first time, given a world of accepable and allowable genocide I have felt I had to block a fellow citizen of the world who I have worked with and feel to have been a friend. [They have, probably done nothing wrong and are going about their artistry at the highest level. They are probably trying not to think of what is being done in their name. They are probably scared to speak out But I felt I had to get off the fence.]
“I am sorry but with deep regret I have to remove you from my Facebook. At this time any russian citizen not anti the invasion must, in my eyes, be supportive of putin. When he is removed and if the empire becomes a part of the caring world, I hope I will reconnect with you. I’m sorry. Chris“.
Today I have been in Krakow in quiet safety, writing emails to all those I have met. I am going to come home and be a champion, challenger, some may say stuck record. That is just me.
So much needs to happen to help change people’s misunderstandings. My taxi driver from the bus pick up point back to the Krakow hotel at 3am yesterday morning asked me “Is there anyone still living in Kyiv and Lviv ?” An innocent question from someone living 3hrs from the border. YES THERE ARE hundreds of thousands of brave, wonderful, creative, resistant, frightened, determined people in these Cities.
Each and every person not at the front or serving, knows of friends, family, lovers, mothers, fathers, sons and daughters who are putting their lives at risk every day and every night. Each of those at the front are visualising their loved ones back home going about their daily lives – taking kids to school, going to the theatre, walking in the sunshine and having coffee with friends. It is that normalcy that they are fighting for.
Each and every person I met is living with trauma. It will take generations to heal this Country. But the fight is on to make Ukraine free, and keep Europe free.
Slava Ukraini – and I can’t wait to return.
End of 3250 words – sorry.