A play to make Ukrainians homesick
Between Kharkiv and Dnipro, Ukraine, nestles a village that has disappeared off all the maps, or else it did for a time, when Lukyana’s grandmother was alive. The opening image of newly arrived Lukyana (Sofia Natoli) at her grandmother’s low-lit kitchen table in her red coat is simple and striking in Polina Polozhentseva’s The Village Where No One Suffers, writes Eleanor Thorn.
Lukyana is here to honour her late grandmother’s wish: that before deciding the fate of the house she lived in, her granddaughter must come back and stay for a month. It’s a leap into an old world, her phone pinging (a tad too loudly), the only vestige of the new world. Should she desire a pastry, she needs to roll up her sleeves amid clouds of flour and start kneading. The twist: she is also escaping the construct of her daily life and fiancé back in Poland, where she’d taken shelter years previously.
Through the visits of Aunt Valya (Nailah Cumberbatch), we learn about the grandmother Lukyana has lost. A not-so-happily married woman who had a shamanistic power, an other-worldliness that enables her to heal and create magic.
Honouring her grandmother’s wishes is one thing, but walking away from her husband-to-be (off-stage, Daniel Popescu) is another more complicated move. Lukyana’s loyalties are confused, and her messages to her Russian (shhhh!)-speaking ex, Pasha (Christopher Watson), result in a knock at the door. He’s not one to say no to a bout of casual sex, nor one to suddenly start declaring undying love, for that has never been his sentiment. Lukyana feels hard done by in that regard, but we onlookers are given little to love him with in the way Lukyana thinks she does, or did; she’s not sure which. At least he serves his purpose: to ease the transition into a more isolated life.
With Lukyana seeking love in unrewarding directions, she flounders: “Like if I went to sleep in my own bed and woke up in the same bed but in the middle of the ocean”. Meanwhile, Aunt Valya is on a mission. The magic bestowed upon the village by her grandmother is wearing thin. Conscription orders are seeping in, and fighter jets are making their presence felt, in the land where bomb shelters had not been needed and men still tucked into meals at their kitchen tables. Lukyana must muster up whatever connection she has with her bloodline to “whisper over the village again” and restore the cloak of protection. The mixing bowl spinning on the table long after Lukyana ends her ritual may be a fortuitous first-night component, but it certainly seems quite magical. Her inherited power can save the village and, who knows, the wider world: “If the war starts here, it will never end anywhere,” says Valya. Peace is the magic, but the caveat: not only war but her fiancé will never find her in this untraceable village.
Apple jam, huska shawl, sweet tea, shawarma street food, little mentions that will make Ukrainians homesick, all the more so in this 4th anniversary week. Songs recorded by Mariia Petrovska are a lovely touch.
Brockley Jack Studio Theatre, 410 Brockley Road, London, SE4 2DH until 28th February.
Booking and full details: www.brockleyjack.co.uk
