Earlier this year, two Ukrainian plays “Take The Rubbish Out, Sasha” by Natalia Vorozhbyt and “Pussycat In Memory of Darkness” by Neda Nezhdana were staged in the Finborough theatre. While Vorozhbyt has had her plays produced in the UK by the Royal Shakespeare Company (“The Grain Store”) and the Royal Court (“Bad Roads”), for Nezhdana it was a UK debut.
“Take The Rubbish Out, Sasha”, written in 2014 by Natalia Vorozhbyt and directed by Svetlana Dimcovic is about loss and grief. It tells us a story about Katya's husband, Sasha (Alan Cox), a former Ukrainian army colonel, who died from a heart attack — he didn't fight, but he fought. Katya (Amanda Ryan) is the breadwinner, organising his funeral. Her daughter Oksana (Issy Knowles) is pregnant with a second child. But, for them, he is still there.
“Pussycat In Memory of Darkness” was also written in 2014 by Neda Nezhdana, who describes a life of a real person, the hairdresser Iryna Dovhan, in Crimea occupied by Russia. The woman was captured and tortured by the Russian invaders. The forty-five-minute play represents an inflamed, impassioned, expressive writing, delivered in performance by Kristin Milward, directed by Polly Creed.