On June 2–3, students at Dartmouth College presented the world premiere of the English-language production of Vertep for Homo Sapiens, a contemporary Ukrainian play by Volodymyr Rafeyenko. The performances took place at the Hopkins Center for the Arts.
Volodymyr Rafeyenko is one of Ukraine’s leading contemporary writers. Born in Donetsk and educated in russian philology and culture, he was forced to leave his hometown after russia’s occupation of parts of eastern Ukraine in 2014. Settling in Kyiv, he made the transition from writing primarily in russian to writing in Ukrainian, becoming one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary Ukrainian literature. In 2022, during russia’s full-scale invasion, he and his wife found themselves trapped between Bucha and Hostomel as russian troops advanced on Kyiv. The experience of repeated displacement and living through war lies at the heart of much of his recent work.
The production was developed as part of the course Ukrainian Theater Workshop: Translation and Performance, taught by Victoria Somoff in Dartmouth’s Department of East European, Eurasian, and Russian Studies.
Throughout the spring term, students translated the play from Ukrainian into English and adapted it for the stage under the joint direction of Peter M. Webster and Alexander Adel Campbell ’26. The production’s lighting, sound, music, choreography, cinematography, and stage management were all created and executed by students.
In Vertep for Homo Sapiens, Rafeyenko reimagines the Ukrainian vertep - a traditional Christmas folk theater that combines sacred and comic elements, music, ritual, improvisation, and community celebration - as a wartime portrait of contemporary Ukraine. Sacred stories intersect with drones, bombardments, displacement, and loss, while carols and laughter coexist with fear and destruction. Surreal, tragic, and darkly humorous, the play explores how people preserve memory, meaning, and community in the midst of war.
The performances were also livestreamed for audiences in Ukraine through a partnership with the international initiative Worldwide Ukrainian Play Readings, allowing viewers in Ukraine to experience the premiere alongside audiences at Dartmouth.