NON-EXISTENT, Vorozhbyt
humorous scenes against the backdrop of war
Schauspiel Essen, Essen, Deutschland
„I just want to go home...“
Three women - grandmother, daughter and granddaughter - sit together over dinner in a cozy apartment in an European capital. They talk about the groceries in the supermarket, the upcoming weekend trip and the youngest's schoolwork. One could almost think that they have always lived here, even though they only moved in a few months ago. In the building they are known as the Ukrainian "refugees", they would rather describe themselves as "temporarily displaced persons". But none of these traumatic experiences - neither flight nor expulsion - are visible.
From a distance, it seems almost unimaginable that they have just stormed out of the house under air raid sirens or were stuck in a traffic jam at the gates of Europe on their way to an uncertain future.
After commissions for major European theaters, including London and Munich, the award-winning Ukrainian playwright and screenwriter Natalka Vorozhbyt is now writing for Schauspiel Essen. In her home town of Kyiv, she has created a play about life and love in times of war. With psychological subtlety and emotional depth, she tells the story of three women from different generations in exile and their attempts to make contact with a homeland that only exists in their memories.
starring: Ines Krug, Sabine Osthoff, Beritan Balcı, Philipp Noack, Jan Pröhl, Lene Dax and Oksana Zhuk, Mariia Apostolova, Lidiia Hontariuk
director: Andreas Merz Raykov
set and costume design: Veronika Bleffert
dramaturgy: Margrit Sengebusch
photos: Nils Heck