Another “Othello” in Kyiv: discussions about war experiences that went beyond the theater on the Left Bank – Publications

The premiere screenings of David Petrosyan’s “Othello” have not yet finished, as the famous Shakespearean play was staged in yet another capital theater. This time, a woman takes on the story of a warrior returning from war.

Oksana Dmitrievathe main director of the Kharkiv Puppet Theater, is staging William Shakespeare for the second time in the last six months. In May, her “Storm” was released at the Zankovetska Theater in Lviv. And already in September, Ms. Dmitrieva made her debut with “Othello” at the Kyiv Theater on the Left Bank.

Negotiations about this production with the main director of the Theater on the Left Bank, Tamara Trunova, were long, so it was possible to start rehearsals only in August. As Oksana Dmitrieva admits: ““Shakespeare’s Othello” is about a warrior who returns after the war, but for him the war never ends. In the end, we consulted and decided to continue working with this work..

For Dmitrieva herself “Othello” at the Theater on the Left Bank – this is the third production of this work, after showings in Sarajevo and on the island of Briony, she decided to work on a play in Ukraine. However, unlike Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia, the war in Ukraine continues. Maybe that’s why the director does not advise to look for parallels between these performances, because if the production in the “SARTR” theater – “about what has already happened” then Ukrainian – about our present. As Oksana Dmitrieva herself says “In Sarajevo, I staged a “white” play, and in Ukraine – a burnt paradise.”

In collaboration with the artist Mykhailo Nikolaevcomposer Kateryna Palachova and Anton Vakhliovskyiwho was responsible for the plastic solution, Oksana Dmitrieva created a performance in the genre of the “iron sea” that washes the shores of the burnt borderland. If Shakespeare’s action takes place mostly in Cyprus, Dmitrieva’s – on the coast of the Black Sea. General Othello’s victorious soldiers ended up here. And here they will have to return to a peaceful life.

Oksana Dmitrieva’s “Iron Sea” is a play about military personnel and their families, for whom the war did not end with the announcement of victory. The director’s “Othello” is about the fact that “after the war” may never come. And about the heroes who are left alone with their troubles – about such “distant and close” war experiences of each and every one.

This play is about how it becomes as impossible to return to the cherished “before the war” as it is to understand when the “after” comes.

Therefore, the heroes appear as if locked in space and in “between time”: if pre-war life seems ephemeral, then post-war life is meaningless.

Mental hopelessness, in which the characters found themselves, represented by a stage – it is framed by metal beds. They are constantly transformed either into barracks, or into the deck of a warship, into a marriage bed, into a ward, into a prison cell, each time clearly delineating the perimeter. Beyond it is a stormy sea, there is nowhere to retreat.

“Iron Sea” beds.

Photo: Konstantin Mokhnach. Theater on the Left Bank

This hermeticity is emphasized by the costumes – without exception, all the characters wear military uniforms. The war is over, but for them these clothes are another way of marking “theirs”. This move seems little or inappropriate – the spatial confinement excludes the possibility of non-participation – everyone in this performance bears the imprint of war.

Desdemona (Maryna Klimova) literally helps Othello (Andriy Isayenko) to move around the scene. The general does not let go of his wife’s embrace, as if afraid of losing her balance. She heals, holds his world, while Othello seems a little confused and a little childish.

Othello and Desdemona

Photo: Kostyantyn Mokhnach, Theater on the Left Bank

The actress sometimes becomes not just a support for Othello, she seems to try to hold together different parts of the world that is tearing apart before her eyes like matter: both the peaceful, Venetian, and military, and the unknown, which is only visible on the horizon of their common sea of ​​life.

The duet of Klimova and Isaenko shows a not so obvious side of the relationship between Othello and Desdemona – they are united not only by passion, but by a common, albeit short, experience of war: for her – waiting, for him – hopes for a new life, for the two of them – a life together, which will by no means become post-war.

In the vortex of post-war passions

Photo: Kostyantyn Mokhnach, Theater on the Left Bank

Oksana Dmitrieva emphasizes the female characters of the tragedy: Desdemona, Emilia, Bianca – all of them are in the production, like the men, in military uniform. Each of them shares the difficult burden of the military experience of their loved ones in their own way. If Desdemona is full of faith that she will be able to return her husband to a peaceful life, then Emilia, humbled by the years of marriage with Iago, is doomed, but sympathetically observes these attempts. Bianca desperately tries to win her right to ghostly happiness with Cassio.

The director appeals to that side of the relationship, which is usually safely hidden behind the walls of family “comfort”: after all, in couples who have gone through the war, the sore wounds are hidden I have two.

Iago appears diabolical and at the same time deeply crippled in the play. Oleksandr Sokolov alternates Mephistophelian treachery with an almost childish, hidden offense. Iago, feeling useless, seems to show us all how destructive the rage of those who have not found a place in a new life can be.

Photo: Kostyantyn Mokhnach, Theater on the Left Bank

Its “too much joy” it sounds like a warning against the unconditional certainty that after the war, a different life will surely await us: bright and carefree. By his actions, he denies any unconditionality of happiness: Iago sows doubt and mistrust… with a handkerchief, as if trying to convince us of the fragility of happiness and existence in general.

Oksana Dmitrieva’s “Iron Sea” keeps the audience in suspense: emotional waves cover the hall one after another: contradictions, hatred, despair, hopelessness. In this stream of overwhelming emotions, it is not easy to see a beacon of hope: the relationship between Othello and Desdemona (of course, the brightest), Iago and Emilia, and even Cassio and Bianca seem to remind us that even in the deepest despair there can be a place for bright feelings that will keep us afloat .

As the director herself says, “Othello” is a play about the choice of Desdemona, who goes with her lover all the way to the end. “And I believe that the world will be saved.” – summarizes Dmitrieva, despite everything, the well-known finale of this play.

Photo: Kostyantyn Mokhnach, Theater on the Left Bank

Although the director anticipated that the reaction to the play might not be easy, the “iron sea” began to storm even before the premiere screenings. the poems used in the play caused outrage in the literary community Olena Zyateva. On the eve of the premiere, she entered into a conflict with a poetess and a military servicewoman Yaryna Chornoguz.

Yaryna criticized Zyateva’s poetry for speculating on someone else’s war experience. Zatieva reacted with accusations and insults towards the servicewoman. As it turned out later, Olena Zatieva had conflicts with servicemen and their relatives before, making disparaging comments and insults. In this connection, the use of Zyateva’s poems in a play about the military caused discussions about their feasibility.

Oksana Dmitrieva, reacting both to the conflict and to the discussion, says: “I want to clarify that ‘before the premiere’ is literally a week before the performance was ready. I got acquainted with Olena Zyateva’s poems on social media and they resonated with me, they began to live in the space of the performance. We agreed with the author on the use of her texts “.

Regarding the ethics of expropriating someone else’s painful experience through poetry, which Zyateva did not experience, she says: “Now it is difficult for me to answer this question unequivocally, and it is even more difficult to separate the texts from the performance. But the theater, by and large, is also needed to problematize certain questions. Which for me is definitely unacceptable – it’s censorship. That’s why I – for dialogue and even for criticism, if it is constructive.”

The conflict between Chornoguz and Zyateva revived an old but relevant discussion of the Ukrainian cultural space regarding the appropriation of someone else’s war experience. Dmitrieva’s performance can be another page in this discussion. After all, he talks about multiplicity and unpredictability of these experienceswhich cannot be limited by the perimeter of the stage.

“Othello” raises an even more important question – how ready are we as a society to understand these experiences: ethically, mentally, institutionally? The performance reminds us of the shards that are deeply embedded in our hearts, where “the abyss is the deepest”but also where our healing begins.