Two Ukrainian Plays Announced at the Finborough Theatre

In a production commissioned by the Finborough Theatre, Two Ukrainian Plays features Natal'ya Vorozhbit's Take The Rubbish Out, Sasha in a double bill with Neda Nezhdana's monologue Pussycat in Memory of Darkness, pairing Ukraine's leading contemporary playwright together with a Ukrainian playwright making her UK debut. Two Ukranian Plays open at the Finborough Theatre for a four-week limited season on Tuesday, 9 August 2022 (Press Nights: Thursday, 11 August 2022 and Friday, 12 August 2022 at 7.30pm).

Take The Rubbish Out, Sasha

"They've mobilised all the living now, the fifth call took the last of the living. But the war keeps on. So high command asked us."

Katia and Oksana are organising Sasha's funeral feast. The bereaved widow and daughter mourn for Sasha, a Colonel in the Ukrainian Army, who has dropped down dead suddenly of heart failure.

As war intensifies, a year after his death, the army has resorted to recruiting soldiers who are dead. Sasha is anxious to join his country's fight, and ready to be resurrected, but his family are reluctant to bury him again. A family argument ensues, should Sasha volunteer again?

From Ukraine's leading contemporary playwright Natal'ya Vorozhbit (The Grain Store - Royal Shakespeare Company, and Bad Roads - Royal Court Theatre, and filmed as Ukraine's official Oscar selection in 2022), Take The Rubbish Out, Sasha, blends reality and the afterlife in a critical look at the effects of war and conflict.

Pussycat in Memory of Darkness

"I want to report a robbery...I was robbed. What was stolen from me? Almost everything...Home, land, car, work, friends, city, faith in goodness...'"

Donbas, 2014. A nameless woman stands in the street. Wearing a pair of dark black sunglasses, she tries to sell a basket of kittens. She has lost everything else she holds dear: her home, her family, her hope.

Russia has taken over Crimea and stirred up ongoing violence in her beloved homeland of Donbas. Betrayed by her neighbour and brutalised by Russian-backed militia, her hope has waned for humanity. She can only now place her hope in finding a home for a basket of kittens, a home she cannot offer.

An urgent piece of new writing from Neda Nezhdana - in her UK debut - that starkly reveals the roots of Russia's war on Ukraine through the eyes of one woman.

On Wednesday, 24 August (Ukrainian Independence Day) at 5.00pm, and free to ticketholders for the evening performance, we will also be screening the award-winning film - Golos, a feature film documentary about Ukraine today, which focuses on people's response to the war across age, place and economic background. The Maidan revolution, where the narrative starts, creates the backdrop as we visit four cities and listen to their inhabitants; old, young, and from different educational, ethnic and economic backgrounds. By documenting what people celebrate and what national holidays mean to them, the film provides a context for people to communicate their hopes, fears and ambitions. These poignant encounters show a common struggle for peace despite differences of opinion, and the influences and memories that form Ukrainian identity.

For more information, please click here.

These live productions complement the Finborough Theatre's ongoing #VoicesFromUkraine series streaming free-to-view releases of Otvetka by Neda Nezhdana, The Peed-Upon Armoured Personnel Carrier by Oksana Grytsenko, A Dictionary Of Emotions In A Time Of War by Yelena Astasyeva and Stand Up For Ukraine by Bréon Rydell.

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