The play “Green Corridors”: how Ukrainians became a nation that no longer suffers

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What does the corridor symbolize for you? Is it a premonition that when we pass it, the comfort of a room, a living home, will be waiting for us? Or is it the other way around – it’s a way from someone’s (own) home and warmth – and it becomes a road to nowhere? And the corridor, or rather the “corridor”, for more than a year has become the rule of “4 walls” for every Ukrainian – sit-lie-down and wait for the blind decision of fate (Moir, karma, universal mercy, the decision of one’s own or other gods – and at least someone else’s, but such that it would preserve the closest relatives. Eventually, all hopes became hope for the “air defense gods”). The play “Green Corridors” based on the play by Natalie Vorozhbyt was staged in the theater in Podil. She was embodied by Maksym Golenko – I would have written about his “outrageous fame” and frequent mentions of his skill in tragifarce – but in the context of this performance, he is a Maestro without unnecessary epithets. His “Green Corridors” from Vorozhbyt is, of course, first of all a symbol of salvation – out of line. But this is where the collision begins – because the authors tell us directly: from now on it will be everyone’s turn and always. The performance is divided into separate stylistically balanced stories – and they all begin with the same word. Are you surprised? But it even has a queue for death…. Kateryna Rubashkina embodied a heroine from Kharkiv in the play “Green Corridors”. Photo: Facebook of Olena Kirichenko-Povolotskaya And the first step is, of course, the order of passage at the border, and, of course, towards the saving Europe, which without fail opened these same “green corridors”, when in the world news on February 24 (yes, everyone knows , that it is not necessary to write the year) rang out desperately: “war in the center of Europe”. However, the news for some reason deafeningly silenced the fact that “our” war was already “going to school” at that time, because at the time of the sensational broadcasts it was already 8 years old. But less so. Read also: “Modern work about truth, feminism and anti-imperialism”: Lesya Ukrainka’s “Cassandra” was translated and staged in Britain for the first time. Therefore, it is through such a “green corridor” that 4 heroines of the play, who will be present in almost all stories in the future – an elderly resident Kyiv region (played by Larisa Troyanovska), who secretly takes out a valuable cargo – her cats, a mother of 3 children from Kharkiv (played by Kateryna Rubashkina), whose husband went to the front, a girl from Buchi, whom Natalka Kobizka, sometimes even without words, plays in such a way that you can definitely read – she is “from there”, that star of movies and TV series (embodied by Dasha Malakhova) – she is “from everywhere” and is strongly distinguished by her elegance and general attitude towards crossing the border. Actress Maria Demenko played in the play Ghost. Photo: Facebook of the theater in Podol But the first strong reflections are not “triggered” by the heroines themselves. At the pass for 4 women, there is not a human border guard waiting, but simply a mythological, superhuman force (played by Maria Demenko – in the poster her role is designated as a “ghost”). And her image becomes so powerful that it gives the very process of crossing an almost sacred meaning. The power embodied by the actress is by no means St. Peter with the keys to Paradise (in other words, from Europe) to the dreamed salvation. No, she is a border guard-Charon, and occasionally Moira. Having the power to decide, she either asks or demands to tell her story – probably from the infinity of such stories, the hair of the border woman-Haron is gray and has not been combed for a long time. But she can no longer not listen – this is her fate, her misfortune, but now it is her life. The only one who causes doubt in the “maker of fate” and starts “Moira” in her – yes, of course, the actress. Either the story of Dasha Malakhova’s heroine does not sound too convincing, or the plastic wreath with which she writes stories, even for such borderline creatures between worlds as a girl with gray hair, reads as “kitsch” and terry insincerity. The main characters of the play “Green Corridors” cross the border together. Photo: Facebook of the theater in Podol Spoiler: all women and even men are allowed in Europe (details in the play itself). And this is where the kaleidoscope of pain, laughter, self-trolling, searching for communication and the desire to reach out begins. And who to reach? First of all, one to the other – because each heroine has her own pain. Conditionally, for a girl with children and a military man, strangers’ cats do not “scratch the soul” as much as their owner. And it is difficult for the heroine from Buchi to agree to visit the “layered” museums and theaters to which the “serial star” calls – after all, for whom, for whom – and for her the muses were silenced even then – in the Buchan torture chamber during the occupation. Read also: “Draw me a plane”: a performance at the Theater on the Left Bank about forgiveness 60 years after the war In fact, the only thing that unites the heroines is the news from home. And the desire to reach out is already shared. To the Europeans. After all, here, as it turned out, in addition to “terms”, unfamiliar rules and the obligatory duty to help, there is a “Queue for understanding”… a real one. Special thanks to the director for visualizing the wounds that people inflict with words. In one of these scenes, the “performance” of Russophiles with the singing of “Russian folk songs” literally becomes axes in their hands, which are aimed at a Ukrainian woman. And every careless word of Roman Halaimov’s heroine – a Frenchwoman who longs for world peace, but stubbornly takes a large part of the world under the “good Russians” with a volume of Dostoyevsky – literally hits the girl from Buchi in the face and leaves a scar on her body. Roman Halaimov embodied a resident of France who loves Russian literature. Photo: Olena Kirichenko-Povolotska’s Facebook “Okay, I won’t argue. You know exactly what blood looks like” is a phrase used by the French woman. And from this “satisfaction” in the viewer, something that probably everyone has tamed in themselves for more than a year rises up inside. And there are many such scenes, phrases, images and symbols that work as the opening of closed floodgates and lead to catharsis – in the play there are many. And Stepan Bandera, Olena Teliga with Oleg Olzhych and Mykola Leontovych unexpectedly appear on the stage. All of them appear in the episodes, which were called the same – in three “queues for death”. Thus, another topical theme appears in the performance – the symbolic understanding of Ukrainians with themselves, self-identification. Dasha Malakhova played the star of the series and Stepan Bandera. Photo: Facebook of the theater in Podol Flashbacks – with historical figures whose context has been somewhat “replaced” – take on a tragicomic form, because these are film scenes filmed and discussed by contemporaries. Such presentation sharpens the question to itself. “Who the hell are we that we can’t be ourselves neither here nor there? Why does our “Ukrainian rage” terrify and infuriate those around us so much – and at the same time drive us so much. How do we “dance” and “sing” our history today? And what do we know about her after all?”. Here, the queue already becomes a new symbol – of cause-and-effect relationships – and we seem to be ready to read them. After all, now – and this can also be seen in the performance – we are united by a common trauma and strength – which, probably, none of us wanted, but…. – we can definitely talk about “we”. We are like that! It hurts us! We are strong and we deserve to be understood! Read also: How to write about a war in a war and why the enemy should (not) be depicted as primitive: theater artists tell A separate love in the play is scenography. Windows are literally built into the stage – they are a portal, and unknown, and fragility, and almost an imperial-meme “window to Europe” – because in the play, at last, unprocessed “imperial and Soviet traumas” are pointedly addressed – for example, one of the heroines tries to cross the border with a Soviet passport. Mykola Leontovych, the author of “Schedryk”, was shown in the play. Photo: Facebook Olena Kirichenko-Povolotska’s Windows are also printed on the curtain in front of the stage and, of course, appear in documentary footage of bombed-out cities. And it all matters. We look out at the world from the windows, from them, taped, we externally learned to stay away, but in the end, they are the ones that mean home to us. A special thanks for the music – there are Lemki songs and a French chanson in flashbacks, and the folk song in the last episode tears it to pieces. “Oh, wild geese flew” – sings the border guard, who lets the heroines back – for the holidays. She is no longer Charon. It is already a song, a song, pathetic – a soul that sings “Geese” so much that you want it or not – and tears come. Dasha Malakhova and Maria Demenko played in the play “Green Corridors”. Photo: Olena Kirichenko-Povolotska’s Facebook And of course, the song acquires new connotations – migratory people, migratory we – a return home, to oneself, where “the air does not smell like in Europe” – and where military equipment is constantly rising into the restless sky, which heroines are eventually confused with a goose wedge. The heroines of the show probably don’t return forever, the return probably hurts – but they all now have something that turned Charon into Mavka in the end. Spoiler two: even the former star of Russian TV series will change. And the aftertaste and the main vibe from the play is put into two points: 1. Ukrainians will no longer be, they don’t know how to be poor.; 2. There is no crack between “those who left” and “those who remained”, it is filled by common pain – because only we know exactly how it hurts and how it flares up later, because it becomes fuel.

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