Performance “I am OK” | Ukraine
Creators: Kharkiv V. A. Afanasyev State Academic Puppet Theater
Text: Nina Zakhozhenko
Direction: Oksana Dmitrieva
Music: Kateryna Palachova, Ruslan Kashyrtsev, Liliia Osieichuk
Light: Dmytro Prasolov, Anton Hlazunov
Sound: Petro Polshchikov
Project manager: Olga Dorofieieva
Discussion moderator: Maiia Harbuziuk
Cast: Dasha - Liliia Osieichuk, Sasha - Serhii Smerechuk, Liza - Oleksandra Kolesnichenko, Maik - Yakiv Ozerov
Premiere: July 1, 2022
Date: 19.08.2023 / Saturday
Time: 5 pm
Place: Room A_22, Art_Inkubator in Art Factory in Lodz
Tickets: 35 PLN (reduced) / 45 PLN (regular)
Tickets purchase: from July 21, 2023 / via kicket.com portal (online payment) / at the festival office (payment in cash and by card)
Duration: 50 minutes (no intermissions)
Viewers' age: 15+
Performance in Ukrainian, with Polish subtitles.
After the event we invite the viewers to a meeting and discussion with the artists.
The discussion will be held in Polish and Ukrainian.
DESCRIPTION OF THE PERFORMANCE
A wartime play. The place of action is Bucha. The war breaks into the world of teenagers who are just starting to live - they dream about the future, falling in love... What is going on in their heads during these terrible days? What are they talking about, writing to each other in chats?
FRAGMENTS OF REVIEWS
“The events covered in the play take place in Bucha in the first days of the full-scale invasion of the Rashists on the territory of Ukraine. The heroes of the play are teenagers. Even on the evening of February 23rd, they discuss their childhood problems, prepare for a test exam, dream about the future, falling in love, and already in the morning February 24th, a war breaks into their world. Everything that happens to them, how they react to the terrible events that are happening these days, they write in the chat on one of the messengers.
The characters of the play are a collective image of a modern Ukrainian teenager with their nihilism, openness, purity and lack of pathos inherent in adults. All the images are supposedly predicted by the war scenario - the fates of the four heroes of the play include those who left the country because of the war, but their thoughts remained in their homeland, and those who stayed in the basements and live the horror of the Russian invasion are those who resist to the occupiers and defends the independence of the country with weapons in their hands, and those who left their native Donbas in 2014, but the war catches up with them after 8 years.”
(Oksana Ivanets, “ArmyInform”, November 29, 2022)
https://armyinform.com.ua/2022/11/29/u-harkovi-pokazaly-vystavu-za-pyesoyu-niny-zahozhenko-ya-norm/
“The events discussed in the production take place in Bucha in the first days of the war, around four teenagers who recently prepared for the external examination, fell in love, and made plans for the future. The beginning of the war divided their lives into before and after. Acting out the various circumstances in which the heroes of the play find themselves, the actors, through the transfer of emotions on the stage, help the audience to remove the so-called post-traumatic syndrome. That is how, through art, PTSD gradually passes.
Bucha's theme becomes a generalised allegory of the City where Peace reigned and where a terrible war took place. Because collectively we experienced what each of us did not want to experience. None of us expected this war, this horror that we all went through. But I had to accept such a complex traumatic experience. Reflecting on this topic, one can also recall the biblical murder of Abel by Cain.
However, what is good: there is no "invented" pathos and emotional outburst in this story. And that's why young actors feel this complex material naturally, and play it on stage organically. Playwright Nina Zahozhenko used elements of the principles of "epic theatre" in writing the text, when the actor's performance includes the principle of "distancing" from his hero.”
(Mariia Prevo, “Luk”, December 2nd, 2022)
AWARDS
- Participation in the 5th Kharkiv Festival (September 2022, Kharkiv, Ukraine)
- Participation in the 26th International Festival of Theaters for Children and Youth “Korczak Today” (October 2022, Warsaw, Poland)
LINKS
