Shakespeare Festival in Ukraine Goes On Despite War

According to reporting by The Guardian, a Shakespeare festival in the Ukrainian city of Ivano-Frankivsk opened with a demonstration, not a play. Hundreds gathered on the theater steps to demand the release of Ukrainian prisoners of war, as the ongoing conflict with Russia cast a shadow over the artistic proceedings.

Later that day, the audience experienced Romeo and Juliet in a striking promenade performance staged in an abandoned factory and the crypt-like basement of the theater. One cast member had recently left the production after signing a military contract.

Shakespeare’s plays have seen renewed popularity across Ukraine during the war. Kyiv theaters are currently staging King Lear, Othello, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Hamlet, Macbeth, and Romeo and Juliet. Translator and poet Yuri Andrukhovych, who adapted the festival’s Romeo and Juliet, emphasized the relevance of Shakespeare’s themes. “There is a big need for theatre to work with existential problems: fear, hate, passion, betrayal, the human soul.”

A new Ukrainian translation of When the Hurlyburly’s Done, a play by Richard Nelson, is also being staged. It imagines an evening with women from Kurbas’s company during the civil war era. The all-female cast from Kyiv’s Theatre on Podil draws direct parallels between their characters’ experiences and the present day.

The festival included a moment of silence following the death of a company member, actor Yuriy Felipenko, who was killed at the front.