Theatre-makers in Canada and Poland team up to help displaced Ukrainians

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Theatre isn’t foremost on minds right now amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and many Canadian theatre artists are currently focusing their energy on humanitarian relief efforts aimed at those affected by the war.

Last year, award-winning playwright Matthew MacKenzie premiered an audio drama called First Métis Man of Odessa with Factory Theatre inspired by the true story of how he met his wife, the Ukrainian actor Mariya Khomutova, on a theatre research trip to Kyiv.

Now, MacKenzie and Khomutova, whose complex story of COVID-19 courtship and marriage climaxed happily with having a child here in Canada, are doing what they can to support family and friends back in Ukraine with the help of other theatre artists.

When their friend Alina showed up at the Polish border with her mother and cat and nowhere to stay last week, Mackenzie got in touch with Canadian theatre creator Michael Rubenfeld, who is currently based in Krakow, Poland, and runs the arts collective FestivALT with his wife, Magda.

Rubenfeld, whose work includes producing the immersive Ukrainian guerrilla folk opera Counting Sheep at Toronto’s SummerWorks Festival and then internationally, immediately agreed to let the displaced Ukrainians stay with him.

“People are taking refugees in everywhere,” Rubenfeld wrote to me today in a Facebook message, of the current situation in Poland. “What I have done is not unique. It’s just what needs to be done.”

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The play that MacKenzie was working on when he met Khomutova was Barvinok. This drama by Edmonton-based playwright Lianna Makuch is about a woman sent on a quest to eastern Ukraine by her aging Ukrainian-Canadian grandmother.

In researching the play, Makuch travelled with MacKenzie to within five kilometres of what was then the front line of the war with Russia to interview veterans and internally displaced people.

I spoke to Makuch on Tuesday morning and she said Ontario’s Blyth Festival is in the process of organizing a Zoom reading of Barvinok that will be a fundraiser for a humanitarian charity yet to be determined. Details should be posted on the Blyth Festival’s Facebook page later this week.

To bring things full circle in this newsletter, Makuch is currently at work polishing a new play called Kitka about a female 19-year-old female combat medic’s experience during the Battle for the Donetsk Airport in 2014, during the upheaval when Russia invaded Crimea.

And that play is primarily inspired by the true story of Alina – the woman who sought refuge in Poland with Rubenfeld last week. Pyretic Productions, in association with Punctuate! Theatre, is set to premiere Kitka later this spring (May 26 to June 5) at the Studio Theatre at Fringe Theatre Adventures in Edmonton.

From the archives: Back in 2008, I travelled to Kyiv and wrote about a local theatre festival dedicated to the playwright and novelist Mikhail Bulgakov – and the debates surrounding The Master and the Margarita author’s identity. At the time, that festival was bringing together theatre-makers and artists from Ukraine, Canada, Russia and Georgia in the great Russian writer’s Ukrainian hometown.

I am full of sadness now thinking of that beautiful city and wondering when on earth Ukrainian and Russian artists will be able to peacefully gather to celebrate what they have in common again.

The New York Times reported on the weekend that many theatre companies are turning toward comedies this spring given everything that’s going on in the world.

The Citadel Theatre in Edmonton currently has a big, sprawling farce on tap that should do the trick in making people forget their cares for an evening – the North American premiere of Peter Pan Goes Wrong (to March 20). British director Adam Meggido is in town to direct an all-Canadian cast in the production, which is being presented in association with Vancouver’s Arts Club.

There are a couple significant theatre openings this week in Vancouver that The Globe’s Marsha Lederman will be attending.

Little Red Warrior and His Lawyer, a comedy in a satirical vein by National Arts Centre Indigenous Theatre artistic director Kevin Loring, opens at The Cultch in a Savage Society production that follows a run at the Belfry Theatre in Victoria. Loring’s play concerns a First Nations land defender who ends up moving in with his court-appointed lawyer (March 3 to 13).

Meanwhile, Touchstone Theatre is presenting the world premiere of playwright Jason Sherman’s Ominous Sounds at the River Crossing – a show originally developed for Toronto’s Tarragon Theatre, but which now has a backlog of new plays to get through at it prepares to reopen next week. Sherman’s play’s subtitle is Another Dinner Play with an expletive between “Another” and “Dinner” that I’ve removed so this newsletter doesn’t get stuck in anybody’s spam folder. It runs March 6 to 13 – with two performances available to livestream across the country on March 9.

Here in Toronto, I’ll be off to see Gloria in its Canadian premiere on Friday at Crow’s Theatre. This ARC production of Branden Jacob-Jenkin’s 2015 play set at a New Yorker-esque magazine runs from March 1 to 20. Look for my review next week.

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