My Saturday ended early because I wanted to write up my blog, and have a delicious tuna pizza in a heavy metal bar which was away from the party world of our very hip hotel. I saw one adaptation/rethinking of a very well known small cast play which I need to explore more. I have had the benefit of seeing a great array of spaces from 60-70 seat end on theatres which had the feel of the Finborough in London, through the lyric West End like theatres, onward to the factory/warehouse epic found space where we saw Trojan Women. I’m sad to have missed Orlando on Saturday night which was on the programme, but it was a student production without subtitles, and my google translate would have disturbed the rest of the house.
Pitching: Yesterday (Sunday) was dedicated for the first 3hrs to a pitching session. 13 theatre/dance makers, organisations, and small companies shared their projects with an audience of producers and funders/champions from Kyiv and our lovely international lanyard-wearing family of guests.
There were some very special connect-the-dots sessions for me. Beyond The Line presented by Anna (director) shared the stage with the author Natalka who had fought for the release of her husband Bohdan from captivity, following the Siege of Mariupol and the Azovastal Iron and Steel works. It led to her forming Women of Steel to fight for the freedom of all captives in torture centres. She has done over 2500 interviews and it was suggested she wrote a novel. Instead she joined the playwriting programme of Veterans Theatre and this led to her creating this piece of work. It looks at the liminal space between Military and Civilian, between Light and Dark, between Bureaucracy and Humanity. Her mentor was Maksym Kurochkin who I’d had the honour to meet at Veterans Theatre.
A number of the presentations rooted themselves in ancient/mythic tales, as seen in Trojan Women and the Aeneid from Veterans Theatre. Using that eternal story of love, war, loss, journeying, death and hope as a core for contemporary exploration with artists and an audience. Folk tales are also a key starting point. As I was reminded, Ukraine theatremakers often have to return to the root of their heritage, culture and stories to distance themselves from the colonial and invading decades and centuries. Reclaim their own heart and soul, and then use that to tell stories about a future free Ukraine and a free people facing the world. Others explore the ecological and human destruction wrought on their Country since 2014 – especially the Black Sea.
I was pleased to learn a little from Vero on their Kafka Project which was created with an Australian/British playwright exploring conformity and queerness, where the audience explore the law and the rights as the characters, like K in the play, seek to ensure that the absurd never becomes a future reality. As I look through the lens of the US Courts and the UK’s rolling back of trans rights and acceptance, “The Case of K” feels rooted in Ukraine but necessary for a global audience.
What happens when the soil you have stood on for generations is not yours anymore ? What happens when your theatre is destroyed and your company of actors flea to 10 different European countries for safety ? What happens when you start as artistic director of a theatre in December and in March it is destroyed ? The Mariupol Theatre of Ukraine in Exile led by Evangelos from his Athens and Kyiv base have recreated their 2021/2 play Alaska by building hubs of creativity around the actors in exile. The original piece was personal testimony and interviews created into theatre about life for teenagers in Mariupol. Their new piece, pitched today, National Heroes, seeks to develop those stories into a piece of hybrid theatre which now includes the decisions to stay or go from this land, from this Country – whether your own to make or forced upon you by invasion.
I will be reaching out to see how you (dear reader) and I can be useful to these many projects. I have marked a few where I want to get the slides of the presentation, and really have a read/think. The sessions were in English which was so helpful for our international family, but they were 7-8 minutes entering a very different world for me where the underlying core understanding of place and infrastructure and named writers/theatres needs me to do some exploring. Excuse me only featuring two, but this article is long enough.
Ukraine Institute: It was so good that midway through, Asia Pavlenko from the Ukraine Institute reminded those pitching of the role of this support organisation – dedicated to sharing awareness of Ukrainian culture with the world, and making connections, and giving some money too. Only founded in 2017, unlike the century of British Council, it already has offices in France, Germany and the Netherlands. I hope, with the 100yr UK Ukraine accord, soon London or even better Edinburgh will have an office too.
There is a special focus on the new voices and contemporary writers of Ukraine. There is an available database of this new work and an active programme to have published translations – so far there is work available in 13 languages.
Veterans Theatre: The Commander/Colonel of this division of the territorial army described how he had come up with the idea. He was popping into a shop to buy some sweet treats for his comrades (as any good leader would do) and witnessed a veteran in a wheelchair on the pavement being actively avoided by passersby. There was a sense of this man being uncomfortably seen. From this moment working, with actor director Akhtem Seitablayev, they found the funding and support to create programmes for veterans and their partners which would use theatre as therapy, but would also bring a normalcy (and a great deal of humour) to the stage with a company of veterans.
The Aeneid has played across Ukraine and into European festivals. It blends the ancient Greek tale of return from war with a quirky colloquial language (if the surtitles match the Ukrainian) using Ivan Kotlyarevsky’s Eneida as a base. From this work there are breakout moments of personal story to help us understand how individual active service members were invalided out, how they survive despite the loss of colleagues or family, and how they gain the physical and therapeutic treatment necessary to live life, manage pain, and even consider a standup career [ Oh I hope you do sir – your timing was brilliant – both deeply dark and joyously…well dark still].
I hope you get to see this extraordinary piece of heroic storytelling. It reminded me at times to the awareness raised at a Jess Thom or a Zoo Co/Perfect Show event – that the theatre environment is established to allow for the unexpected where life can get in the way of the perfect performance. This is truly live theatre with non-trained actors navigating time and space with a phenomenal sense of community. The company ‘abled’ the space for each other, allowing the individual voices and narratives to hit strongly with the audience.
After the show I was standing by the entrance and wondered why members of the audience kept coming towards me. I realised there was a mirror just there and each was checking for the impact of the tears on their appearance. Tears of recognition. Tears of horror at what someone has gone through, And tears caused by very simple theatrical storytelling and imagery.
It is not surprising that one of the cast talked of the additional healing power of this work – in that they were working every day with people who understood what a bad day might be like, and had shared lived experience of the front.
It was also really powerful that the small team of young performers who join this veteran company are all training as directors who, through this shw, are learning how to work beside folk who have returned from the war. That will be the reality in community and professional theatre for decades to come, and Veterans Theatre is helping to pave the way for abling those who return.
Another member of the company at the Q&A described the show as a process where we are all children given the toy of theatre to explore. This is healing work for those who participate, but also those who witness. I hope to be in an audience feeling the collective experience in the UK soon.
Final Show: From here we moved to the world premiere of a new piece by Opera Aperta in the majestic setting of the theatre above Independence Square. After a 30 minute introduction by the director in Ukrainian without subtitles or interpreting, I rather lost the will. I think I had better leave it to the opera critics of Rotterdam and Vienna to explore the music and themes of
Mōdraniht. Songs of Winter War when it transfers on tour over the next month. It blended singers/musicians working below us in the orchestra pit filmed onto a vast screen, then the same performers exploring a stage of pianos (think Pianodrome meets a Ken Russell naked film shoot). They then appeared to become cows and we had an onslaught of cow bells throughout the theatre. [First time I’ve been given earplugs by ushers as I enter a theatre]. It ended with an array of bubbles which reminded me of the devise used in the Globe’s Midsummer Nights Dream, and a lovely image of these beautiful bodies lying wrapped in each other gently singing again. Whilst I leave it to the critics to give you an understanding of this piece, I was sad not to be able to give the cast at least a round of applause – but we were denied that courteous release by the director.
I decided at this point to slip away from the end of festival party and walk the 35 minutes back to the hotel as the sun set and cast amazing light over this most beautiful city. I walked again past the thousands of flags representing each person who has died at the hands of the invaders. [I was shown two Scottish flags and I will try and learn more about this fallen men]
I was curled up in bed with a cup of tea and wondered whether my dreams would unlock the naked human cowbell opera any more. They didn’t. Today I meet a couple of new people working in virtual reality theatre shows and events, and then the director of Trojan Women, before I head to my night train to Warsaw and home.
I can’t wait to return, and maybe next time I will explore into some other cities where theatre and dance is part of the cultural offer which is holding a people together and giving hope.