Ukraine Unbroken Review – Five searing dramas about the history and horror of the Russian invasion | stage

nNicholas Kent’s concept for a series of short plays about the war in Ukraine is based on his 2009 cycle of dramas about Afghanistan’s colonial history, similarly staged while the war was raging. A smaller project, featuring five plays instead of 12, Unbroken Ukraine packs a punch, rising in both power and horror over the course of the evening.

The two editorials are more interpretive and historical, shooting an arrow through the fog of the 2022 Russian invasion and subsequent war to expose past abuses. Always, by Jonathan Myerson, shows a politician (David Michaels) and his wife (Sally Giles), trapped in a hotel room while outside snipers open fire on a crowd of people in Kiev, and depicts the history of protest in the Maidan uprising of 2013-14. David Edgar’s Five Day War depicts Russia’s deadly colonial ambition and highlights preparations for Russian victory through mock press conferences, including one that imagines the death of President Zelensky. It is informative and original in form although it is more difficult to relate to than later plays.

Natalka Vorogbyt’s Three Friends, translated by Sasha Dugdale, is a searing monologue by a Ukrainian insomniac (Ian Bonar) who evades conscription while lying in hiding, rocket fire and bombs shaking his bed. He talks about his former life at the conservatory, recalling two of his musician friends on the front line, and his absentee wife who appears to be haunting Jade Williams. A desperate man filled with fear and self-loathing, he contemplates his inevitable fate (forced conscription) in prickly funny tones.

Wretched Things by David Greig presents an urgent moral dilemma for three exhausted Ukrainian soldiers in an abandoned elementary school who find a wounded North Korean fighting for Russia. They must decide whether to save themselves first or this dying man as bullets fly overhead. The latest show, from Kat Guskovich, is about a Ukrainian mother’s (Williams) quest to find her 12-year-old daughter (Clara Reid), who was kidnapped by Russia during the Siege of Mariupol (we’re told this has happened to about 20,000 Ukrainian children since 2022). It’s emotionally devastating with the lack of closure indicating the ongoing internal trauma of this conflict. Life after war appears occasionally in these last three plays, from the voice of the skylark to the birthday cakes and TikTok dances.

Four of the dramas are directed by Kent (with three companions directed by Victoria Gartner) and all are wound together by Maria Petrovska, whose singing, music and storytelling come before and after each play, framing the show as a whole. She is sitting on a raised platform and is tied up PandoraUkraine’s national machine, provides a haunting conclusion to the drama, while the cast juggles multiple roles admirably.

The production serves as a reminder of theater’s vital interventions in understanding the world and, in this case, explaining the present by dramatizing the past. Given current events in the Middle East, perhaps we need such a project that traces the colonial history of that region further.