乐鱼 体育

BY BLAIR A. RUBLE

鈥淲hy is Putin bombing us?鈥� a frightened child asks a traumatized mother. How can anyone answer? Natasha Block鈥檚 new play Our Children brings the unanswerable grotesque uncertainties of war directly into our souls.

The ghastly war in Ukraine is nurturing an exciting theater that holds promise for world theater. As reported here previously, some of the world鈥檚 leading theater artists rallied as the first bombs were falling on Ukraine to launch an international initiative to bear witness to Putin鈥檚 horrors. Starting with the Worldwide Ukrainian Play Readings Project, Maksym Kurochkin of Kyiv鈥檚 Theater of Playwrights, Philip Arnoult of Baltimore鈥檚 Center for International Theater Development, Noah Birksted-Breen of London鈥檚 Sputnik Theatre, John Freedman, and others have commissioned Ukraine鈥檚 playwrights to create scripts in response to the war.

Kurochkin personifies the transfer of creative energy to Ukraine. A Russian-speaking native of Kyiv, he became one of the New Russian Drama movement鈥檚 brightest stars. Kurochkin worked in Moscow, in the post-Soviet theatrical hotbed of Yekaterinburg, and in the Russian film industry. More than half a dozen years ago Kurochkin returned to his hometown where he joined forces with two dozen playwrights to establish the Theater of Playwrights with the goal of nurturing a rising generation of Ukrainian theater artists. Recently he has switched to writing his own plays in Ukrainian.

By the end of April, the Worldwide Ukrainian Play Readings Project had commissioned more than one hundred new scripts, many translated into English and other languages and all available online. Well over one hundred project-sponsored readings had taken place in some twenty countries. The proceeds are used to support Ukraine-based organizations.

On May 5, I had the privilege of participating in one such virtual reading in Washington, D.C. Though Washington remains first and foremost a political city, the American capital has developed a vibrant theater community over the past three quarters of a century. Boycotted in an earlier era by the nation鈥檚 leading theater artists in response to the city鈥檚 noxious Jim Crow segregation, by the mid-twentieth century Washington was a city bereft of professional theater. A theater community befitting a major national capital took root once Jim Crow customs became illegal.

Today the city is home to dozens theater companies and the second largest theater audience in the United States. Its theater world has become an incubator for all variety of artists and productions that have found success in New York, Hollywood, and major dramatic centers around the world.

Washington鈥檚 Voices Festival Productions collaborated with the Washington Arts Club, long housed at the historic James Monroe House on Pennsylvania Avenue, diagonally across the street from the World Bank, to host a virtual reading for this expansive theater community. The evening featured three of the plays supported by the Worldwide Ukrainian Play Readings Project: Yelena Astasyeva鈥檚 A Dictionary of Emotions in War Time, Natasha Blok鈥檚 Our Children, and Adriy Bondarenko鈥檚 Peace and Tranquility. A. Lorraine Robinson directed each, which featured actors Hanna Bondarewska, Aakhu Freeman, and Lisa Hodsoll.

The plays captured the shock and horror of the war鈥檚 first days. Astasyeva used her experience to give new meaning to such emotions as 鈥減anic,鈥� 鈥渇ear,鈥� 鈥榟unger,鈥� 鈥渂etrayal,鈥� love,鈥� 鈥榟atred,鈥� and guilt.鈥� Blok tried to answer questions posed by children, such as 鈥淲hy are they killing us?鈥� Bondarenko pondered what happened to all those rights he thought he had while growing up. Interspersed community commentary set off the plays from each another. A panel discussion followed.

The shock of uncertainty unleashed by war binds together these works of rather different style and temperament. Far too much remains unknowable to answer the existential questions posed by the performances. Combined, they proclaim that which we already know, namely, that an energetic Ukraine and Ukrainian culture will continue well into the future.

Ukrainians have awed the world with their passion, resilience, creativity, and commitment to a better country. Their land and culture profoundly matter to them. Ukraine no longer stands in anyone鈥檚 shadow. As the arts are revealing, Ukrainians themselves have built鈥攁nd continue to build鈥攁 distinctive culture and society for themselves.

Endings in the arts often accompany beginnings. Early in April, Philadelphia鈥檚 Wilma Theater presented Russian director Dmitry Krymov鈥檚 take on Anton Chekhov鈥檚 iconic The Cherry Orchard. The production was unlike any other among the thousands of productions of the play over the past century. Krymov has been one of Moscow theater鈥檚 leading lights during the remarkable era of the New Russian Drama movement, which took advantage of the new freedoms of the Soviet collapse to create one of the Russian theater鈥檚 most creative periods. Such inventiveness, unfortunately, wilted before the combined onslaught of Vladimir Putin鈥檚 brutish authoritarianism and the Russian Orthodox Church鈥檚 spirit-crushing campaign for 鈥減atriotic鈥� moralism. Putin declared Krymov a traitor just days before the Philadelphia opening.

Fittingly, The Cherry Orchard is about curtains coming down on societies and their cultures overwhelmed by economic, social, and political change. An entrepreneurial peasant who has risen to wealth stealthily buys an estate out from under its aging aristocratic landlords and chops down their prized cherry orchard to build a compound of summer cottages for sale. Krymov, in one of several nods to the horror unfolding in contemporary Ukraine, uses a magical train departure board to announce that the Muscovite landowners have arrived in Kharkiv, thus setting the action in a region under attack. The play ends not to the sound of axes chopping down trees, as in Chekhov鈥檚 original, but to bombs falling on a not too distant city. Once again, Chekhov鈥檚 last masterpiece prompts contemplation of finales.

In Krymov鈥檚 case, plans are afoot to establish a new studio in New York. Artists fleeing predatory authoritarians are enriching American performing arts yet again. America鈥檚 gain is Russia鈥檚 loss, even if few in the Kremlin seem to care.

For the past three decades, Ukrainian artists working in many genres鈥攍iterature, theater, dance, music, the visual arts鈥攈ave drawn energy from the freedom, chaos, and contradictions of their country鈥檚 independence. In the process they have created a mature artistic community that has overcome the Soviet Union鈥檚 de-Ukrainization cultural polices of the 1960s through the 1980s (and far worse before). They have done so largely out of the view of an international arts community mesmerized by the legendary glitter of European and Russian cultures.

The Ukrainian cultural moment arrived as Putin鈥檚 authoritarian regime lowered the curtain on Russia鈥檚 art scene and raised it on a culture that Ukrainians have been creating for themselves for the past several decades. In all the horror and terror of war, a previously undiscovered artistic domain full of innovation, energy, and beauty has come into view. The world should be thankful that Eurasia theater鈥檚 new leader will be ignored no longer.

The opinions expressed in this article are those solely of the authors and do not reflect the views of the Kennan Institute.