Donbass Review – Ukrainian Family Shattered on the Verge of Invasion | stage

HeyWinner of the Theater503 International Playwriting Award, Elga Braga’s stark new play is a bleak portrait of the war in Ukraine. This intelligently conceived and tightly choreographed production clings to the moments leading up to Russia’s large-scale invasion of the Donbas region in 2022, as Braga conjures a grim microcosm of the war in a packed Ukrainian house.

Every element of this sometimes overloaded show works hard, with already high tensions within the family rising as the external threat of Russian occupation approaches. Director Anthony Simpson Pike makes ambitious use of the small stage in his first show as artistic director, while Niall MacIver’s set pretends to be simple only to tear itself apart impressively when the invasion occurs.

Dreams were already shattered when we met our crew. Jack Bandera haunts the stage as Sashko, a young man with hungry eyes recently released from a Russian prison. Desperate not to cede an inch to the invaders, he clashes with his contorted father Seryozha (Philip Spall), who is willing to abide by Russian rules if it means living. In the play of masculinity and square shoulders — which sometimes turns into shouting matches — the best moments are the small ones. When Sashko asks his father’s Moldovan girlfriend Marianka (played warmly by Sasha Sizonenko) to teach him how to pronounce her name correctly, their shoulders sink into each other in a rare moment of intimacy.

Heritage is important in this home. They talk about “pure-blooded” Ukrainians, about not being welcoming neighbors because of where they were born, not because of where they’ve always lived (the playful Steve Watts and the flirtatious Liz Kettle give a very short and much-needed reprieve as good neighbors). Sashko’s folktales slow down the play’s urgency to calm the neighbour’s silent, watchful granddaughter, while nearby, a gun is drawn down the family’s street while Bandera and Spall double as soldiers watching over an abandoned house. These secondary characters extend the scope of the play but also extend to its heart; They are more or less drawn to participating in all the action, while not giving enough time to feel individual pain.

In Sashko’s stories, he explains what it means to have a good death and not a wasted death. By depicting the indiscriminate ugliness of war, Donbass reminds us that this slim hope is just another story we tell ourselves to get by.