Gra

The premiere of the play "Gra", directed by Svitlana Doronchenko, with the participation of students from the Ivan Karpenki-Kary National University of Theater, Cinema and Television in Kiev. The event is organized in connection with the first anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Svitlana Doronchenko is a refugee from Ukraine and a participant in the Theater Institute's Artist Residency Program. Her performance Gra is based on the play Family Situations by Biljana Srbljanovic. The choice of a story about the experience of the Balkan war is a sign that in the second year of a full-scale armed conflict, Ukrainian artists are looking for a language that allows them to universalize the experience of war trauma. The stage of the Theater Institute will present a story about children who are lonely, unattended by adults, perhaps orphaned. Children who, having lost the carefree childhood, try to find security by acting out the roles of a seemingly normal life. However, the reality of war dramatically distorts the image of "normality" imitated by children: cruelty, violence, lies, humiliation - this is the only truth about the world, as seen through the eyes of children.

The director of the play Svitlana Doronchenko on the genesis of its creation: For me, what is happening in Mariupol and Melitpol is a very painful subject, I have been following it since the first day of the war. Still a lot of people remain there under occupation. Someone didn't leave because they were waiting for the "ruskiy mir", someone just wasn't able to do it. Adults who remained in the territories are accompanied by their children, who have now been deprived of their childhood. Denunciations, filtering, propaganda in schools and on television, lack of normal living conditions, lack of work and money - this is their reality. And what happens in the play, written by Biljane Srbljanović in 1998, is very similar to life under the current occupation. Conflict, lack of love, cruelty and indifference are becoming the norm, and these traumas take a long time to heal. Unfortunately, we can't change it, but we can reflect on it, express our pain in art and convey that pain to the world.

This performance will be presented in Ukrainian with Polish surtitles.