The premiere of the play Internat (boarding school), directed by Paweł Lisak and based on the novel of the same name by Serhiy Zhadan, took place at the Stefan Jaracz Theatre in Łódź. The author of the work was present at the performance.
The novel Internat was published in Polish in 2019, translated by Michał Petryk and released by Wydawnictwo Czarne, which has also published other books by Zhadan as well as works by a number of contemporary Ukrainian authors.
The plot centres on Pasha, a 35-year-old Ukrainian language teacher working in the Donetsk Region. He sets out to collect his nephew from a boarding school (internat) near the front line, just as the Ukrainian army is leaving the city, which is surrounded by Russian occupation forces. The protagonist’s journey through the war zone becomes an inner journey towards maturity and the acceptance of responsibility.
“This is a play about responsibility. The main character, somewhat out of his depth, is compelled to take responsibility for another person. He accepts this challenge, and it transforms him, prompting him to recognise the importance of his neighbour. The theme that Zhadan raises is, on the one hand, a response to the existential question of how to act in crisis situations, and on the other hand, it carries a political connotation, as this is how helping others is understood today,” notes Paweł Lisak.
The staging of Internat in Łódź is an important element of the broader Polish–Ukrainian theatrical dialogue.