As a refugee herself, Anna Lysenko finds it cathartic to be taking part in the character of a Ukrainian girl pressured to flee her homeland in a brand new manufacturing in Warsaw.
“You open your soul. Those emotions, the pain that is in you, you let it out on to the surface,”
Lysenko, 21, informed AFP as she completed her make up earlier than the play.
Lysenko needed to escape together with her baby, forsaking her husband who’s serving within the armed forces and forcing her and search for a job in theatre in a brand new metropolis.
“Little by little, I came out of my cocoon, out of my depression,”
she stated.
The play “Six Ribs of Anger” — a reference to totally different ranges of trauma — tells the stories of 5 Ukrainian ladies residing in a refugee centre in Poland.
The plot paperwork their grief, worry and anger in addition to their fantasies and the way they assist one another by means of the trauma.
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It is predicated on intensive interviews carried out by the administrators in a sprawling refugee centre close to Warsaw quickly after Russian troops started their invasion.
The play is being staged on the Komuna Theatre — a brief stroll from the central prepare station which noticed thousands and thousands of individuals transit by means of at the beginning of the conflict.
Lysenko performs the character of Lesia, a ballerina from Bucha — a city close to Kyiv that has turn into synonymous with the alleged atrocities carried out by Russia.
In one scene, she imagines herself in a tutu with a sword interrogating the Russian soldier who killed her mom.
There can also be a scene through which one other character re-lives her final moments together with her lacking husband and daughter in Mariupol, a metropolis that was devastated whereas being taken over by Russian troops.
“The aim of this play is to give strength to Ukrainians, show what they have endured and how strong they are, and how they can persevere,”
stated the director Beniamin Koc.
The director remembered getting into the refugee centre for the primary time.
“I got shivers. It was a huge space under black sky, a black ceiling,” he stated, remembering the scent “like in a train when you travel for a long time”.
“It was quite shocking. Children were playing, roller skating all over the centre so life was continuing there but this life was unbelievably unreal”.
‘Theatre involves you more’
The play has solely ever been staged in Warsaw up to now however Koc hopes he’ll be capable to take it on tour, additionally to boost awareness in regards to the conflict and its victims.
Koc stated it was “important” for the actors to participate within the manufacturing “because they are themselves in this situation” but it surely was not at all times a straightforward course of.
“It’s impossible to work with them like with people who have a place to live, have comfort. You have to keep it in mind”.
The manufacturing is deeply transferring however there are lighter moments too — reminiscent of jokes about Polish delicacies and a scene through which the characters carry out dressed up as Eurovision winners Kalush Orchestra.
Mariya Severylova, 33, stated she additionally hoped the play would hook up with folks in a approach that watching the information couldn’t.
“Theatre involves you more. You’re sitting face to face. There is a living person in front of you,”
stated Severylova, who was wearing a brightly-coloured tracksuit.
Severylova performs Sniezhna, a loud however susceptible single mom who fantasises about President Volodymyr Zelensky coming to her support and someday transferring to Italy.
The actress stated she fled 10 days after the conflict began and calls it “a terrible tragedy that affects everyone forever”.
“Every time I perform I know that we are talking about the thing that is most important — there is a war going on and everyone should know about it.”
© Agence France-Presse