A Dictionary of Emotions in a Time of War
by Yelena Astasyeva
by Yelena Astasyeva
Yelena Astasyeva's "A Dictionary of Emotions in a Time of War" explores the complex emotions and daily struggles of life amidst the devastating impacts of war, revealing the juxtaposition of love, fear, and survival in a shattered world.
About The Play
About The Play
Watch on our YouTube channel here.
The Finborough Theatre’s new digital initiative #FinboroughFrontier continues with the third in an ongoing season of online readings and performances of Ukrainian Plays as a part of the Worldwide Ukrainian Play Reading Series, a collaboration with the Theatre of Playwrights in Kyiv to read new Ukrainian plays around the world. In addition, true to our policy of pairing vibrant new writing with unique rediscoveries, we will also be presenting readings and performances of classic Ukrainian drama and poetry in English.
Yelena goes through the words describing emotions that have continually visited her ever since the war began: fear, hunger, cleaning, betrayal, hatred, love, guilt and conversations with Russian friends vs. conversations with Ukrainian friends…
Imagine what it’s like for someone whose home is being bombed, whose chance of getting a loaf of bread equals the number of weeks spent in a queue, and who might be shot in her car if she tries to leave town. Yelena tries to make sense of her ‘new life’ and carry on with her daily routine. And when a Russian girlfriend tries to understand – Yelena will explain, but at the back of her mind she is thinking about the deaths from thirst, due to damage to the water system, and her Ukrainian friend who can’t leave the country without her cat. And she will recall the complicated relationship with her boyfriend – because as the war continues – love is the most important word to preserve in your dictionary.
Available FREE TO VIEW on the Finborough Theatre YouTube channel #FinboroughFrontier.
All videos are free to view but we do ask for donations to the Voices of Children Foundation, a Ukrainian charity providing urgently needed psychological and psychosocial support to children affected by the war in Ukraine. Visit the website here.
Available from Monday, 13 June 2022 at 6.00pm
Simultaneously available free with subtitles on Scenesaver
Performance Length: 25 minutes.
#FINBOROUGHFRONTIER
During lockdown, our acclaimed #FinboroughForFree series released monthly free-to-view archive recordings and original online content including new plays, rediscoveries, a community festival, and the Finborough Forum, our invitation-only group for theatre creatives. Our online work saw us awarded London Pub Theatres’ Award for Pub Theatre of the Year 2020, and our web series Late Night Staring At High Res Pixels won London Pub Theatres Standing Ovation Award for Best Online Theatre 2021.
We strongly believe that online work is an exciting new complement to our work, and are anxious to explore this new medium, embracing anything that can be presented digitally including film, livestream, audio, and hybrid. We are especially keen to develop digital work to increase our international engagement, and also to ensure that our work is truly available for everyone, especially those who cannot easily access our auditorium.
Since January 2022, we have continued our online work under a brand new name – #FinboroughFrontier, curated by Artistic Director Neil McPherson and Playwright-in-Residence Athena Stevens. All our online content will remain – as it was throughout lockdown – entirely free to view, and also be available in a subtitled version. Our first releases, earlier this year, were An Earls Court Miscellany, a celebration of the vivid history and personalities of Earl’s Court featuring poetry, prose and music, and filmed in the local area, and How To Make A Revolution by Einat Weizman with Issa Amro, a verbatim documentary play filmed in the UK and Hebron.
#VoicesFromUkraine #Українськіголоси #Ukrayinsʹkiholosy
Previous streaming releases in the #VoicesFromUkraine #Українськіголоси #Ukrayinsʹkiholosy include Otvetka by Neda Nezhdana, available here, and The Peed-Upon Armoured Personnel Carrier by Oksana Grytsenko, available here.
Productions include Two Ukrainian Plays featuring Natal’ya Vorozhbit’s Take The Rubbish Out, Sasha in a double bill with Neda Nezhdana’s monologue Pussycat in Memory of Darkness, pairing Ukraine’s leading contemporary playwright together with a Ukrainian playwright making her UK debut. Two Ukranian Plays open at the Finborough on Tuesday, 9 August 2022 for a four week limited season.