Christopher Walker reviews Pussycat in Memory of Darkness and Take the rubbish out, Sasha at the Finborough Theatre

Don’t look away.

Russia’s cruel, terrible acts in Ukraine need to be exposed so that the killing stops soon, and stops there. Bravo to the Finborough Theatre, ever a brave innovator on the fringe, for staging Two Ukrainian Plays, and for streaming a free series called Voices from Ukraine. They bring much needed light into a dark place.

Neda Nezhdana is one of Ukraine’s leading playwrights and the author of more than two dozen plays. Born in Kramatorsk in the Donetsk region, she lives in Kyiv, but is now in internal exile in Chernivtsi. Her work reflects the suffering of her country with titles like The Suicide of Loneliness and When the Rain Returns. They are not light relief, but we simply must watch.

A woman’s perspective on war is often neglected, but not here in Pussycat in Memory of Darkness. In the capable hands of London writer and translator John Farndon it is an extraordinary cri de coeur.

A nameless woman stands in the street wearing a pair of dark black sunglasses. Bizarrely, she is trying to sell a basket of kittens. She has lost everything else she holds dear.

“I want to report a robbery…I was robbed. What was stolen from me? Almost everything…Home, land, car, work, friends, city, faith in goodness…”

Pussycat is a marvellous vehicle for a versatile actress, and Kristin Milward is simply superb. Very quickly she has the audience gripped, and with just a few crucial props takes us through the story of her life. Director Polly Creed works well with her.

The play is set in the Donbas region of Ukraine in 2014. The monologue is interspersed with a series of photographs to remind us of its grim history in the shadow of the Russian bear.

Kristin Milward in Pussycat in Memory of Darkness

Some aspects are familiar, but we all need reminding of what happens when tribal dreams are whipped up into a frenzy. In this case when a neighbouring country funds a separatist militia. Women are raped and people die.

I personally needed reminding of the Malaysian airlines Flight 17 that was shot down in 2014 by these separatists, with a Buk missile supplied by Russia that morning. Nearly 300 completely innocent people died. Why did the West let Russia get away with that?

The gritty realism of this piece compares to the fantasy of the second play Take the Rubbish out Sasha.

The action begins with a bereaved widow, Katia and her daughter Oksana mourning Sasha, a Ukrainian Army colonel, who has dropped dead. But then the plot takes a strange twist. As the war with Russia intensifies, Ukraine resorts to calling up dead soldiers and Sasha is keen to be involved. But his family are reluctant to bury him again. A family argument ensues, should Sasha volunteer again?

This doesn’t quite work as plot twist, and the insertion of a couple of strange ballet sequences sits even more oddly.

Alan Cox is quite amusing as Sasha and reminiscent of his famous father Brian who was in the audience. Issy Knowles plays Oksana, while the wonderful Amanda Ryan is her mother. She is very watchable, and I long to see her again.

The playwright is Natal’ya Vorozhbyt co-founded Ukraine’s Theatre of Displaced People which offers refugees from the Donbass region an opportunity to tell their stories in a theatrical context. She took part in the Euromaidan protests in Kyiv in 2013 and 2014.

Overall, the women are very much to the fore in this glimpse into Ukraine. It’s not an easy evening, but it is compulsive viewing. https://finboroughtheatre.co.uk/production/two-ukrainian-plays/

Pictured top, Kristin Milward in Pussycat in Memory of Darkness Pictures: Charles Flint. KR C