On the anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, this comes as a timely reminder of the difficulties of life for the people who live there….and this play offers hope. Though the war has avoided the small rural village to which Lukyana has returned, it is starting to be bombed, but can she save it?
Lukyana lives in Poland and has returned to stay in the house of her grandmother who has recently died. She is here to fulfil her deathbed wish: to stay in the house for a month without a mobile phone, transport or any of the creature comforts of everyday life. She can’t do without the phone, which keeps her in contact with her fiancé in Poland, but the rest of it she struggles through.
She picks up with an ex-boyfriend, Pasha, from ten years previously. Referring to the past, she asks, ‘Why didn’t you feel in love with me?’. He truthfully responds, ‘Something was missing’. Apart from sex, neither of them seem particularly interested in each other. This relationship doesn’t seem to mean much in the play either, except he might now get drafted into the war, when he just wants to get on with his life.
The more vital relationship seems to be with the neighbour ‘Aunt’ Valya who is well aware of village gossip and rustic folklore. She speaks of grandma’s ‘healing hands’ used on wounded soldiers from the battlefront,and her ability to keep the war at bay in the village. She implores Lukyana to channel her inherited gift and replace her grandmother in the village, but can she manage it?
The action takes place in the simple cottage kitchen with its rustic baskets full of grandma’s old holey jumpers and the headscarf which her granddaughter puts on as she gradually transgresses, taking the old woman’s place.
Lukyana begins to realise that she is there for a reason, that the village needs her in these challenging times. ‘Hurry up or you’re only going to die’ says Valya in a spirited performance by Nailah S. Cumberbatch; she knows that the power of grandma is now vested in Lukyana.
All the cast are engaging. Sofia Natoli offers a lively performance as we see her gradually replacing her grandmother. Nailah S. Cumberbatch is energetic as the demanding neighbour. Christopher Watson as Pasha trying to avoid a draft is suitably dower and aloof as the disinterested lover.
This is an intriguing life story but also an elegy to rural Ukraine, far from the front line. Folk traditions continue with plaintive songs, cherry dumplings and poppyseed cakes, where they still plant potatoes and paint the tree truck white with missiles passing overhead while they hide in the cellar.
Playwright: Polina Polozhentseva
Cast: Sofia Natali, Nailah S. Cumberbatch, Christopher Watson
Director: Valery Reva
Duration: 60 minutes no interval
Until: 28 February 2026