How to live with war. The Kiev Theater Ensemble will be performing in Prague
The Municipal Theaters of Prague will present the Czech premiere of the production, which was prepared by the Left Bank Theater in Kiev, Ukraine. It will be the first local guest of a Ukrainian theater since the beginning of the Russian invasion.
The production will be presented at the Comedy Theater on June 20. This is a play by Natalia Vorožbytová called On the Wrong Way, which also became a model for the film of the same name the year before. The performance in the landscape will have Czech subtitles.
It was on the wrong track in response to the events of 2014. At that time, Russia annexed Ukrainian Crimea and pro-Moscow separatists, supported by Moscow, began to fight with Kiev for the country’s east.
Each of the six short stories in the drama examines one aspect of the aggression of the time, the relationship between women and men disrupted by the war, or the wounds that never heal. It shows that the conflict in eastern Ukraine is not just explosions, shelling and dead lists, but that people on the other side of the front are still alive, bringing together the broken roads of the Donbas, the organizers say.
The young woman sets out to document the conflict, but in the gray area of the border, she becomes a hostage on both sides. He lives somewhere in the middle, where there is no good and evil, where the victim and the executioner exchange roles and love becomes fleeting and elusive. The play had its world premiere in 2017 at London’s Royal Court Theater.
Its author is the playwright, screenwriter and director Natalija Vorožbytová, who also made the film of the same name according to her own screenplay. He ran for the Oscars for Ukraine and she stated Czech Television. The HBO Max video library is currently on offer with Czech subtitles.
Seven years ago, Vorožbytová was a guest of the traveling literary festival Month of Author’s Reading. A graduate of the Maxim Gorky Literary Institute in Moscow, she drew attention to herself with the play Obilnice about the Russian-induced famine in Ukraine in 1932 and 1933, which her grandfather survived as the only one of 11 children.
She later became interested in documentary drama Majdan’s diarieswhich was created during the revolution at the turn of 2013 and 2014. a record of authentic testimonies of students, demonstrators, direct participants and witnesses of events in Kiev Square was recorded.
In addition, Vorozhbytova wrote the screenplay for the Russian television series School about the lives of ninth-graders at a primary school in Moscow or the games Life of Ordinary, What Do You Want, Ukrainian God? and Little Girl with Matches.
After the outbreak of war in eastern Ukraine, she spent a lot of time on the front line, talking to participants in the 252-day battle of Donetsk airport. She later wrote the screenplay for the film Cyborgs. His Prague screening ended with a standing ovation.
The production, which will be seen by the people of Prague on June 20, was directed by Tamara Trunovová, featuring Kateryna Kachanová, Oksana Ždanovová, Anastasija Pustovitová, Kateryna Savenkovová and Světlana Štanková. The recording can be found in the video library Dramox.
Trailer from the production On the Bad Road, which will be presented on June 20 by the Comedy Theater in Prague. | Video: Theater on the left bank