Otvetka

Watch on our YouTube channel here.

Watch with subtitles on Scenesaver here.

The Finborough Theatre’s new digital initiative #FinboroughFrontier continues with the first 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.

Under the shadow of an imminent Russian attack, a woman tries to hold her shattered life together after the father of her unborn child is killed in the Donbas by a sniper. Suddenly, her phone pings with a happy message from a friend on the other side. A wedding invitation! How will she respond?

This explosive ‘monodrama’ by leading Ukrainian writer Neda Nezhdana confronts not only the physical war between Russia and Ukraine, but the hybrid war she sees unravelling around the world.

‘Otvetka’ is a Ukrainian word that means both answers and a military retaliation.

The play is currently electrifying audiences in Ukraine where performances are constantly interrupted by the all-too-real sound of the air-raid siren. It is dedicated to a true Ukrainian hero, the tenor Vasyl Slipak who traded success in the Paris Opera in 2016 to volunteer to fight for his country in the Donbas – only to be killed by a sniper a few months later.

#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.

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.