What can contemporary Ukrainian art say to the West in 2025? I ask this question after the premiere of Tamara Trunova’s performance Confronting the Shadow at the Performing Exiles festival in Berlin.
Reflecting on this production, I recalled a recently published interview with journalist Aida Cerkez, in which she discusses the siege of Sarajevo: “Theatres were an important factor in maintaining collective common sense. People who had never been to the theatre before started going during the war because you sit there for two hours and pretend that everything is fine.” This brought to mind a social media post I saw earlier by a resident of Kamyanets-Podilskyy: according to her, people often have more free time until their relatives and friends join them in a new city; as a result, it is mainly new arrivals who attend the theatre.
In Trunova’s play – a production she both directed and wrote, described by German critics as a stage essay – actors from the Left Bank Theatre add: “The illusion of normality ceases to work, and everyday life no longer masks the tragedy.” Here, they portray themselves. Having arrived in Berlin – “deep behind the lines” – they must present themselves as “normal”, avoiding excessive dramatisation in order not to unsettle those they encounter with their post-traumatic humour. Oh, and it is worth stressing at every opportunity: Malevich is Ukrainian!
Thus, Maryna Klimova, Kostyantyn Koretskyy, Iryna Mak, Oleksandr Sokolov, Oleh Stefan and Iryna Tkachenko appear on the chamber stage of Ballhaus Ost in Prenzlauer Berg clad in leopard-print costumes. This serves as a symbol of the Ukrainian people’s gratitude for German tanks.
Of course, there is more to be thankful for: for assisting refugees, for the first kebab on Berlin’s Friedrichstrasse, for the surge of support – because we understand how difficult it is for you to deal with us…
Next, Iryna Lazer appears in a blue and yellow Marge Simpson costume. The ethno-electronic music performer Mavka, initially invited to the project as a composer, ultimately assumed a recurring role that binds together the seemingly disparate episodes of the performance. The German moderator persistently lectures the Ukrainians: not everything is so clear-cut. Even if you are from a region where people still believe in justice. International dialogue involves two sides.
Here I recall Aida Cerkez, who spoke candidly from the stage of the Lviv Media Forum about inevitable reconciliation in the future; only later, on social media, were her ideas actively discussed and refuted – but without her involvement. Perhaps the Bosnians have already completed this training course in international diplomacy, as have the Germans. And Ukrainians are undergoing it now. On this stage. In this war, even before it ends. In world politics.
“The world cannot withstand honesty,” replies the choir of Kyiv actors to these instructions. “The world is for peace, and the price of this peace is us.”
Choral singing, expressive choreography, projections and lighting become a universal language – accessible to all spectators through German and English subtitles. Equally recognisable are references to the history of theatre – from Shakespeare to Heiner Müller – and a clear tribute to film director David Lynch. The political cabaret format, immensely popular in Germany, facilitates the understanding of sarcastic remarks that may otherwise be elusive to those who do not regularly follow not only news of the war, but also the disputes between Ukrainians and Russians, which largely remain an internal matter.
The most striking element is not Chayka’s monologue, performed by the naked Maryna Klimova, but the appearance on stage of Azov soldier Mykola Gradnov-Savitskyy. A director and actor, he lost his legs in the war and is now undergoing rehabilitation while returning to the theatre. The dignity with which he rejects the advances of Istyna (Iryna Mak) signals the emergence of a new hero in Ukrainian art – one who goes beyond poetry readings and panel discussions, where audiences often ask about returning to the front and expect to hear an unequivocal “yes”.
Finally, the hellish tour ends. We are shown another video projection: actor Volodymyr Kravchuk, in military uniform, who had accompanied the actors to Berlin at the outset, now meets them again – in the foyer of the Left Bank Theatre. With relief, they all set out to build a new theatre on the ruins of the old world. Perhaps there, Kravchuk will at last play Fortinbras, as he had intended before the full-scale invasion.
According to Tamara Trunova, festival curator Matthias Lilienthal gave her complete creative freedom in preparing the performance. The text was modified throughout the process, and the production ultimately became almost an hour longer. But the work is not yet finished – the Kyiv premiere is planned for the autumn. Will the capital hear something new about itself then, I wonder again, because, thanks to the persistent efforts of cultural diplomacy, it has long been accepted that Malevich is Ukrainian. Even the Germans described the performance primarily as a documentation of the “exhausting struggle for international visibility”, with the non-Ukrainian audience clearly in need of urgent support to correct long-standing misconceptions (TAZ). But it is also a mirror held up to every viewer (Berliner Morgenpost).
Tamara Trunova states that Confronting the Shadow remains in flux, as it was during the development of the German festival version. Thus, the June performance in Berlin is unique – it will not be repeated in the same form. In Kyiv, audiences will see a completely different production, entitled Working with the Shadow.
When the Berlin stage declared, “and then all the spectators went on to live their lives,” it applied to only a small fraction of those who will come face to face with these “…shadows.”
