By February 24, 2022, the war in Ukraine has been going on for 8 years. This text is dedicated to its very beginning – the Maidan 2014 in Kyiv and to the subsequent war in Eastern Ukraine. The country was divided into two zones – war and peace.
The Women and the Sniper is about how war changes the world, and vice versa; and how peacetime values can affect a soldier. In the play, the destinies of a young sniper, Lyosha, and staff from the Museum of Art – Marina, Justina, the Museum Attendant, and Seryozha – are interwoven. Lyosha wants a peaceful life but has to fight and kill. The women are learning to live in a time of war, and at the same time – to be open, to care, to love.
The ragged structure of the text conveys an atmosphere of confusion and misunderstanding widespread among the civil people during the first months of the war.
Characters: male – 5, female – 4
The play became a winner of the festival Lyubimovka (Moscow, 2014), Coronation of the Word (Kyiv, 2015), took the Grand Prix of the Free Theater competition (London-Minsk, 2016), and was staged within the project “Wilder Osten. Ereignis Ukraine” (2016, Magdeburg Theater, directed by Alexandra Senchuk).
This play contains documentaries: snipers’ radio conversations, rebel reports about the operation in Donetsk airport, advertising on the websites of weapons manufacturers, training manuals for snipers, posts on social networks and media, interviews with military men and with employees of the Ukrainian National Museum of Art, and other documentary materials.
When writing the text lots of were used such as stories of participants from the opposing sides, interviews with employees of the National Art Museum (Kyiv), and others.
