In the summer of 2004, a German student travels to the Donbas and meets Nastya, a young mother who has fled her violent husband. Between them, a fragile hope emerges — of a different life, of a future that at the time seems possible, yet ultimately shatters against language barriers, social constraints, and conflicting expectations. The play follows the two characters across two decades, until Nastya’s trail disappears into the fog of war. What remains are fragments of different possible lives: Nastya in Donetsk, in Kyiv, in Moscow, in Berlin. The stage imagines scenarios between Mariupol and Tegel. But which is the “true” Nastya—or are they all parts of the same woman, who must constantly reinvent herself in order to survive?

Based on an autobiographically inspired encounter between a Ukrainian woman and a German man, the piece develops a parable about responsibility, powerlessness, and the relationship between Germany and Ukraine. The text is created in direct response to real biographies and lived experience gathered during the production’s research and rehearsal process. NASTYA seeks to counter the waning interest in Germany in the war in Ukraine with a personal, human voice, opening a space of resonance in which empathy, memory, and the imagining of a shared future become possible.

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Premiere: June 25, 2026 at TD Berlin

Further performances: June 26, 27, and 28