Inna, the female protagonist, has her birthday. She lives in Kyiv and her parents who live in another city come to visit her. In the evening, when birthday dinner will be served, they are to meet their daughter’s fiancé, Yosyp, who recently came back home after participating in the anti-terrorist operation. The parents have some free time to kill before the dinner, so they decide to take a walk, buy a gift and visit the place where they first met a long time ago – the so-called House with Daisies, on Zlatoustivska Street (the building was demolished in 2016), while Inna goes to her Pilates classes. However, this, run-of-the-mill day of the happy family turns into an absurd horror, full of violence, retraumatization, and pain. When did everything go wrong? Pilates loses its impact on the female body, turning into a repressive beautifying instrument. The female body, which is subject to constant objectification, becomes an apparition bringing demolished houses to life, an echo of the war that rages both near and far away, a boundary between Eros and Thanatos, and a medium that is used to inscribe upon the palimpsests of urban (and not only urban) space. A marginalized female voice, which has always been a symbol of self-sacrifice in culture, becomes a shout that, in order to be heard and seen, can take the form of the aesthetics of total ruination.
The play was a finalist in the Transmission.ua: drama on the move competition (UK). The translation of the play into English was supported by Ukrainian Institute and British Council as part of the UK-UA Culture Season 2022.
Daisy Gibbons, a dedicated translator with a profound commitment to bringing Ukrainian voices to the global stage, has been honored for her exceptional translation efforts with Literature in Translation Prize by Ukrainian Institute London. The award-winning translations include poignant extracts from Artem Chekh's wartime diaries and a compelling play titled "Pilates Time," authored by Olha Matsiupa.