Guest Blog: Writer Olga Braga on Sleep Deprivation, Emotional Connection and Dumplings in Her Debut Play DONBAS at Theatre503

When I write, I talk to myself. Not quietly, not subtly - fully in character, with voices, intonations, and the kind of dialogue that shouldn’t be overheard by strangers in a café. It’s for this reason that I tend to write alone at home, where the only person judging my performance is my laptop.

Writing is, by nature, a solitary act. On the page, I’m in charge. The characters say what I want them to say, they do what I want them to do, and the world of the play bends entirely to my will. It’s intoxicating - total control - but it’s also lonely. For most of the writing process, the play lived entirely in my head - a private room where I could hear every voice perfectly, because I was the one supplying them.

Which is why having Donbas produced has been such a thrill. Donbas is a play about the ordinary life that insists on continuing inside war. Suddenly, the play isn’t happening only in my imagination. It’s happening in a rehearsal room, with actors, a director, and a whole community of people bringing their own instincts, questions, and intelligence to the work.

The play is shared, questioned, shaped, and expanded in ways that are both exhilarating and humbling. Collaboration doesn’t dilute the writing - it deepens it. There is beauty in that loss of control, and, if I’m honest, a small sting too: you spend years hearing the play one way in your head, and then suddenly it belongs to everyone.

Another completely unglamorous part of production is sleep deprivation. The play is emotional. The days are long. I walked up to a colleague. He gave me a look. Then he tilted his laptop screen away from me. Naturally, my sleep-deprived, scenario-generating brain decided: he hates me, and he’s typing an email about me as we speak - because, obviously, everything is always about me. Only later did I realise he was doing his taxes. Two days overdue. We were both exhausted; he just needed some privacy with his spreadsheets.

One of the unexpected pleasures of this process has been learning when not to speak. As a writer, I’m used to being the person who decides. In rehearsals, I’ll have a thought about a moment in the scene that isn’t quite landing yet, or a beat that needs a different kind of space - and I’ll hold back, because I’m not the director. Then, a few seconds later, Anthony Simpson Pike [Director] says the exact thing I was thinking - which is both eerie and deeply satisfying.

Those moments feel like creative telepathy - a reminder of what good collaboration can do, and of Anthony’s care for the world of the play. Or maybe it’s the Adidas tracksuits we both keep turning up in. Somewhere between the shared notes and the shared sportswear, I began to suspect we might be kindred spirits.

I’ve also been struck by how seriously the actors and crew take even the smallest details on the page. There are moments in the script - intimate moments - where I wrote something like kiss the eyelids, almost forgetting that someone would actually have to do that in real life, under rehearsal lights, with other people watching. I was embarrassed, touched, and slightly astonished to discover that the room treated it with complete seriousness and tenderness.

The same goes for food. I wrote dumplings into a scene assuming they’d be politely mimed. Instead, the dumplings arrived. They were eaten with full commitment. In tech, I walked onto the set and saw a Ukrainian calendar on the wall. I got unexpectedly teary-eyed. That’s what careful design can do: it makes the world onstage feel so specific it hurts.

Writing begins in solitude, but theatre turns it into something shared. The voices in your head become voices in a room, shaped by other minds and other hearts. I can’t wait for audiences to join that collaboration too.

Donbas runs at Theatre503 from 5–28 February