Description:
These texts in the wake of invasion, written by the members of the Theater of Playwrights, Kyiv, in spring, summer, and fall of 2022, have a documentary thrust. Reporting from diverse places in Ukraine, from Kyiv, Lviv, Mykolaiv, from occupied Kherson, from the front itself, and locations farther afield in countries of refuge; employing diverse modes of expression: poetry, screenplay, dialogue, diary, diatribe, comedy, short story, recollection, each is a singular response to a seismic and agonizing shift. Each is an act of defiance as well, an assertion of the full human weight, of the integrity of a people.
Brief description:
Maksym Kurochkin, a playwright and screenwriter, is one of the most respected writers in Ukraine. Born in Kyiv, he studied history and archeology at Shevchenko National University. In the late 1990s, he graduated from the Gorky Institute of Literature in Moscow and split his time between Kyiv and Moscow for the next 18 years. His early iconic productions include Kitchen (Moscow, 2000), Stalova Volya (Kyiv, 2001), Repress and Excite (Moscow, 2008), The Schooling of Bento Bonchev (Moscow, 2010; Austin, Texas, 2012), Dulcey and Roxy at City Hall (Austin, Texas, 2014), Vodka, Fucking, and Television (Moscow, 2006; Austin, Texas, 2012; Kyiv, 2017), Titus the Immaculate (Moscow, 2016), and Be Silent, Oedipus (Moscow, 2016). He returned to live and work permanently in his native city of Kyiv in 2017. Some of his major works during this period were Russiaphobia, Kherson, Asexuals, Laurels, and Tolik the Milkman. His plays have been performed around the world.
Review Quotes:
These plays reflect the shock of a peaceful people who were invaded and relentlessly attacked, destroying all the cornerstones of daily life they had known. We read these plays as sympathetic bystanders, but also let us read them as kindly-meant warnings. One year ago, a vortex of irrationality overwhelmed a sovereign people who were nearly as confident of their peacetime security as those of us living in western Europe, America, and the free world still are.
--Dana Rufolo, "Plays International & Europe"