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About this talk

In the four years since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the response of theatre makers to the war has shifted and evolved. While in the early days, theatre buildings became physical spaces of refuge for the local population, since then, making theatre has at different points, become a mode of witnessing, an act of resistance, a way of partaking in the conflict itself and much more. As the tactics of the invasion have expanded to include persistent and lethal drone incursions and devastating attacks to Ukraine's infrastructure, theatre makers, within Ukraine's borders and beyond, have had to rethink how they respond to this ongoing brutality and what role performance might play in ongoing debates around memory, history, national identity and survival. Bringing together theatre scholars and practitioners from Ukraine, Poland and the UK, this roundtable coincides with the publication of Contemporary Theatre Review's special issue: 'Theatre's Response to the War on Ukraine: Performances of witnessing, documentation and intervention'. It features presentations from the issue's editors, Olga Danylyuk, Kasia Lech, and Amanda Stuart Fisher, as well as London-based Ukrainian playwright Polina Polozhentseva. These short presentations will be followed by a roundtable discussion moderated by Birkbeck's Molly Flynn. This event is co-produced by Birkbeck's Centre for Contemporary Theatre, Central School of Speech and Drama, University of Amsterdam, and the Global Coalition of Ukrainian Studies.

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