His expression is a mixture of strangeness, incomprehension, confusion, concern, and relief… In the courtyard of La Abadia Theater, the actors and technicians of the theater have gathered. Lesha Ukrainian State Academic Drama Theater After 30 hours of travel from Kiev to Madrid, they talk to each other (first article) … Take the train to Budapest, then fly to the Spanish capital). During the trip, his city was again bombed by Russian forces with over 400 drones and 18 missiles. But once again, they have to muffle the noise of the projectile with words, in this case words. Calderon de la Balsa And his “life is a dream” (“Життя – це сон”, “Life is a dream”).
On Saturday, November 15th and Sunday, November 16th, the Ukrainian theater company will present a version of Calderon’s text at La Abadia Theater. Jose Gabriel López Antuñano and address Ignacio Garcia. According to him, the project was carried out by the Spanish Embassy in Ukraine (Ambassador, ricardo lopez arandastrongly believes in the role of culture, especially theater, as a way to work together to alleviate the pain of the Ukrainian people), and the role of the Spanish Cooperation Agency in 2022, when the war began. The rest was carried out with the involvement of Ukrainian theater institutions, and the work, which premiered in December 2024, entered the repertoire of the Lesya Ukrainka National Academic Dramatic Theater. After Madrid, the company, consisting of 15 people, including artists and technicians, will travel to Pamplona (Tuesday the 18th) and Logrono (Thursday the 20th).
“Doing theater in Ukraine changed my life,” begins Ignacio Garcia. “It gave me a deeper, more combative sense of people being transformed through theater.” What does it mean to these actors to do theater now? “It means not ending your life completely,” he continues. Some of the members who are currently at the front have had to quit. One of the actresses had her home destroyed in the Mariupol bombing. Another woman killed her boyfriend in a separate bombing at a factory. There is also a story that her father was kidnapped by Russians…it’s a horrifying story. And theater is therapeutic, a way to move on with life. And being able to participate in the International Festival here in Madrid means that your life is a little more similar to other people’s lives. In a way, like Segismundo, the main character in “Life is a Dream,” you wonder why others can do it and you can’t… Young Ukrainians like Segismundo have every right to wonder why Frenchmen and Hungarians can travel the world, be free, and have the normal problems of teenagers and young adults, while for me their homes are being blown up, they’re kidnapped, their boyfriends are killed. It’s very important for this group to get out of there and be on par with other companies in other countries at festivals like Autumn Festival…usually. Because they can go out for beers after the premiere without curfew or bombings.
“Doing theater doesn’t mean cutting off your life completely. Some of the members who are now at the front have had to quit. One of the actresses had her home destroyed in the Mariupol bombing. Another woman had her boyfriend killed in another bombing at a factory. There’s another story about her father being kidnapped by the Russians… It’s a scary story.”
García added that Ukraine’s cultural traditions are very important. “There is massive cultural consumption. Just like in other Eastern European countries like Hungary and Poland, everyone goes to the theater. Closing the theaters would be like closing the bars here, it would take away part of their life. There are two sacred places there: the Orthodox church and the theater. “People gather there and there is a great deal of emotion.”
“In fact, – he continued – the Ministry of Culture changed its name a year ago. Now it is called the Ministry of Culture, Strategic Communication, because we believe that culture is part of the country’s communication in the world, a means of sending messages and making the presence of Ukrainian culture known. Until four years ago, the name of this theater was the State Academic Theater of Russian Drama. gogol, chekhov…in Russian. And actors had to change their methods, repertoire, and language to adapt to the new way of doing things. Theater is of great cultural importance. It is a way to avoid disappearing as a people, language, and culture. And for me, it’s a great pleasure to be around him. ”
One of the functions of theater is to tell us about the world around us and to hold a mirror to reality. However, Ukrainians currently do not like to talk about what happened to them, preferring more evasive and entertaining theater. “This production is unusual. But the director of the theater company is aware of the social and political commitment of the theater company and the meaning of theater in this context. And it is very shocking. One of the actresses talks about her dream at one moment: she dreamed that she burned her hand and her boyfriend breathed on her to relieve the pain, but one day she woke up and The audience learns that it’s true that Meru and her boyfriend were killed in a bombing. I’ve never seen such strong catharsis. Of course there are works that have a metaphorical reading, and everything that’s out there today is read from this perspective. That’s why they try to make the theater almost evasive.
“They feel tired. They are grateful for the help given to them, but of course the dead and suffering are their own, and there is much suffering and there are many dead. “Everyone has terrible stories.”
Ignacio Garcia says comparing this situation with ours civil warAlthough there are many differences, “I am referring to the conflict between the totalitarian model and the liberal model. Just like the International Brigades came to Spain, there are volunteers who go there… It is good that we go there. If one day something like what they are experiencing happens to me, I would like to avoid being alone.”
Do you feel abandoned and forgotten? “They feel tired. They are grateful for the help given to them, but of course the dead and suffering are their own, and the suffering is much, the dead are many. Everyone tells you terrible stories. And while the West is calculating in war, there are still dead and destroyed cities. What is geopolitical calculation for us is immediate suffering for them. They felt betrayed in a sense because they didn’t do what they were told they would. Above all, of course, after 1,200 or 1,300 days of war, there’s a lot of fatigue. According to the banker What I had. Look at the mental exhaustion of leaving your kids at school and not knowing if you have to go to the bunker.
“Life is a dream” has a special meaning, argues Ignacio Garcia. “By performing the play there, we discovered things we had never seen before. Segismundo had no mother, was unsocialized, and grew up being abused, so it was very difficult for him to behave well. Well, there’s a Catholic rule that punishes bad behavior.The public reaction in many of the productions I’ve seen so far has been to accept that these are the rules, the laws of the game.But what I saw in Ukraine was a sign. What is extraordinary and what struck me is that the fact that Sigismund is back in the Tower causes disappointment and severe depression, because they understand that it is a collective failure and implies the impossibility of regime change. Without even saying it, we understand that Basil is the past. Just as here Basil was understood to be a superstitious idea of the Middle Ages, they think that Basil is the Soviet Union, and that Sigismund is the hope of the New World. You start thinking about the revolutions of 2004, the revolutions of 2014… You start thinking about touching your pennies with your fingers and freeing yourself from these yokes and how you always ended up in attacks and bombings. It’s impressive how many different things can be said in a text without touching a comma.
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