With most male actors at war, a small Ukrainian theater reinvents itself with an all-female cast

CHERNIHIV – The 43-year-old Ukrainian actor took to the stage sporting a black leather-based jacket and with a moustache painted on her face.

Ruslana Ostapko was performing in a number of historically male roles in a latest manufacturing of the Chernihiv Regional Youth Theater. With so many males serving in Ukraine’s armed forces to repel Russia’s invasion, the theater has tailored to the realities of conflict, and ladies are taking the highlight.

“We have been rehearsing Shakespeare’s ‘King Lear’ when out of the blue our males have been taken to the entrance,” stated the theater’s 52-year-old director, Roman Pokrovskyi. “We solely had the feminine a part of the troupe left. So we thought, ‘Properly, if males performed ladies in Shakespeare’s occasions, why not give it a attempt?’”

The efforts of the theater in Chernihiv, the capital of a area that borders Russia and Belarus, replicate a broader actuality in Ukraine the place ladies are getting into roles as soon as dominated by males, sustaining not simply their industries however the spirit of nationwide resistance.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine started in 2022, 4 of the theater’s male actors and 5 stage employees have joined the military, leaving the troupe short-handed. Solely two males nonetheless carry out on the stage, and most stage work is completed by ladies. However the troupe has reinvented itself by adapting its repertoire, remodeling its house right into a hub for artwork and wartime volunteer work, and casting ladies in most roles.

A brand new tackle a storied pro-independence determine

An all-female solid is taking up “Hetman,” a play based mostly on the lifetime of Ivan Mazepa, a seventeenth century Cossack chief who defected from the Russian Empire’s military to facet with King Charles XII of Sweden.

Mazepa’s position because the pro-independence chief, and the theme of Ukraine aligning with European states to withstand Russian management, stay salient in Ukraine greater than 300 years later.

Ostapko burst into tears when requested about her pals and colleagues preventing on the entrance.

“That is ache, the ache of your entire nation, our ache,” she stated whereas getting ready for a efficiency. “However our guys are doing effectively. We preserve our fingers crossed for them. We assist.”

The theater’s predominantly feminine actors and employees — together with cloakroom attendants, cashiers, cleaners, and cafeteria employees — spend a lot of their time supporting Ukrainian troopers, weaving camouflage nets within the theater earlier than opening the doorways to audiences at night time.

The staff additionally frequently raises funds to provide their deployed colleagues with crucial package for the entrance traces. However a few of these colleagues won’t ever return to the stage.

“Our actor, Kostiantyn Slobodeniuk, went lacking. Our sound operator, Dmytro Pohuliaylo, disappeared within the Pokrovsk course on the finish of 2024,” stated Oleksii Bysh, 52, one of many theater’s few remaining male actors.

Standing by {a photograph} of one in every of his former colleagues, sound engineer Vyacheslav Shevtsov, Bysh describes how he was killed in a Ukrainian counteroffensive within the Russian area of Kursk final August.

‘Destroying our tradition means destroying our future’

Whereas Chernihiv stays below Ukrainian management, it has paid a heavy worth for its proximity to Russia’s borders. At first of the invasion, Russian troops besieged town, forcing residents to endure harsh winter circumstances with out electrical energy or water below fixed shelling from Russian artillery, missiles and drones.

Because the conflict enters its fourth yr, Russian strikes on Chernihiv stay frequent and tradition has not been spared.

A major variety of cultural and inventive establishments within the Chernihiv area have been destroyed or severely broken, requiring repairs or complete reconstruction, stated Oksana Tunik-Fryz, 46, head of the Arts and Tradition Council on the Chernihiv Regional Administration.

“The enemy is destroying us from inside by destroying our tradition,” she stated. “Killing a Ukrainian is killing an individual. However destroying our tradition means destroying our future.”

Drone strikes unite a neighborhood

Earlier than each efficiency on the theater in Chernihiv, a recorded announcement reminds audiences that the present can be paused within the occasion of an air raid alert.

That warning was recorded by Kostiantyn Sloodeniuk, an actor who joined the military and is now lacking, theater director Ihor Tykhomyrov informed the Related Press. When the alarm sounds, which Tykhomyrov stated occurs at almost each second efficiency, everybody inside strikes into bomb shelters.

“Russian drone strikes are an issue, a significant issue, however there’s an attention-grabbing factor,” he stated. “It brings individuals collectively.”

Regardless of an unsure future, the theater’s staff is set to proceed their artwork and their wartime volunteering. Reflecting on their resilience, Bysh quotes Soviet-era Ukrainian filmmaker, Oleksandr Dovzhenko.

“We’re a small theater,” Bysh stated. “However, as Dovzhenko stated, you might be solely small from afar. Up shut, you might be massive.”