The first announced theatrical performance at Pohoda 2023 is the Ukrainian monodrama Kitten in Memory of Darkness
The Kherson Regional Academic Music and Drama Theatre, named after Mykola Kulish, will perform the play Kitten in Memory of Darkness at Pohoda. During his current trip to Ukraine, Michal attended this performance in Mykolaiv, where the theatre operates in an underground bunker.
17. April 2023
Kitty as a memory of the darkness is a story about the life that Ukrainians had been living in Donbas for 8 years, and about the realities in which people from the Kherson, Zaporizhzhya, Luhansk and part of Kharkiv regions found themselves in 2022.
The plot is based on a touching monologue of a woman from Donbas. A woman wearing dark glasses sells three orphaned kittens - white, grey and black - all that remained of her home, her land, her peaceful world - after the Russian occupation... You can take off the glasses, but the darkness remains - under the eyes and in the eyes...
While telling her story, the heroine cooks borshch. She is peeling potatoes, beetroots, chopping cabbage, and at this time talking about the horrors she experienced during the occupation. The preparation of a traditional dish balances the terrible story and, at the same time, shows the resistance of the heroine, who remains a patriot when her country is destroyed, a housewife when she is deprived of her home.
The woman treats the audience with this borshch in the end of the play. This is quite symbolic, because she shares almost the last benefits with the hope that better times are ahead and light will overcome darkness.
During the entire action, the kittens are "hidden" in a box... And, according to Serhiy Pavlyuk's stage version, the heroine keeps not one (as in the play), but all three kittens, because soon the heroine will have her own home and they all will ave a place to live.
"I saw the Kherson Theatre’s play a few days ago in the bunker of the Mykolaiv Theatre. It was one of the most powerful artistic experiences of my life, and I am proud that the Kherson Theatre will perform it at Pohoda. After the play, there will be a theatre discussion with the admirable person and theatre director Oleksandr Knyha. I highly recommend both events," adds Michal Kaščák from Ukraine.
In the new interpretation of the play, the role of the Woman is performed by theatre actress Olga Boytsova.
The director is Serhii Pavlyuk, Honored Artist of Ukraine.
The playwright is Neda Nezhdana.
General artistic director of the theatre, People's Artist of Ukraine Oleksandr Knyha.
Language: Ukrainian + Slovak subtitles: translated by Marta Kákoni from Musical drama ensemble of Taras Ševčenko in Bratislava
Duration: 75 min
The premiere took place on May 24, 2017. within the International Theatre Festival "Melpomena of Tavria".
The performance was updated on September 27, 2022.
The bunker in Mykolaiv, which has been converted into a theatre:
The theatre performance Kitten in Memory of Darkness, which you will see at Pohoda:
Culture in Ukraine goes on, artists and audiences alike do not give up:
An actress symbolically cooks borscht during the performance. Foto: Serhij Kononenko
Foto: Serhij Kononenko
Foto: Serhij Kononenko
Oleksandr Knyha – general director of the theatre:
Olexandr and Michal, Foto: Serhij Kononenko
The courtyard of the theatre hit by a bomb:
The courtyard of the theatre hit by a bomb:
A bombed elementary school:
Bombed Polytechnic Institute:
Michal Kaščák, Artem Svystun, Olexandr Knyha and Oľga Bojcova: