The text, commissioned by the Polski Theatre company, was translated into Polish by Adam Pomorski.
The direction is in the hands of Svitlana Oleshko, Zhadan’s wife, and the music was composed by Noam Zylberberg, an Israeli musician with Polish family roots.
Kharkiv! Kharkiv! centres on the life of Les Kurbas, the founder, director and reformer of Kharkiv’s avant-garde Berezil theatre, who fell victim to a Stalinist purge and was killed in a mass execution in 1937.
The play focuses on a conflict between the theatre and the authorities of the city of Kharkiv, which was the cradle of the Ukrainian avant-garde in the 1920s, as well as disputes between the director and the audience on one side, and the actors on the other.
The director of the Polski Theatre, Janusz Majcherek, told the media that the story of Kurbas carries a universal message, being a metaphor for the experience of every artist and the struggle for ideals.
Majcherek also said that contacts between the Polski Theatre and Ukraine began soon after the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of that country.
Oleshko came to Warsaw and became a resident artist in the theatre. Subsequently, her husband Serhiy Zhadan was commissioned to write Kharkiv! Kharkiv!
Further performances of Kharkiv! Kharkiv! are scheduled for March 23, 24, 26 and 27 and May 18, 19 and 21.
The Warsaw-based Mieroszewski Centre is a partner of the production. The centre draws on the legacy of the émigré Polish journalist and political commentator Juliusz Mieroszewski (1906-1976).
Mieroszewski was a staunch advocate of the national aspirations of Ukrainians, Lithuanians and Belarusians and a critic of Soviet domination in Eastern Europe.
(mk/gs)