Pushkin House is delighted to present a special theatre evening featuring the performance of Vanya is Alive, a new anti-war play by a Russian playwright Natalia Lizorkina, followed by a talk with the creative team.
Vanya is Alive is a powerful new play from today's Russia created by artists in exile due to their anti-war position. It tells the story of a mother of a mobilised Russian soldier, who plunges into the abyss as she struggles to comb through state propaganda and lies. Where do the limits of personal responsibility lie? Can an individual stand up against the system? Echoing the actual political situation in Russia, this dark tale reflects on the price of truth and freedom with a touch of absurdity and disarming sincerity, and looks at a country grappling with the reality of war and repressions.
Written in March 2022, Vanya is Alive is considered to be the most important play in Russian since the start of the war. It was shortlisted for the playwrighting festival Lubimovka and since then has been presented as reading in Paris, Berlin, Belgrade, Granada, London, Helsinki and many other cities where the Russian diaspora now finds itself.
Its first stage version premiered in August 2023 at the Edinburgh Fringe festival. The play won the audience’s recognition and received excellent reviews from renowned media outlets such as The Financial Times, The Scotsman, The Edinburgh Reporter and many others.
The show will be performed in English and will be followed by a Q&A session with director and translator Ivanka Polchenko and actor Nikolay Mulakov.
Vanya is Alive
Text: Natalia Lizorkina
Director and translator: Ivanka Polchenko
Cast: Nikolay Mulakov
The Financial Times: ★★★★
“In Nataliya Lizorkina’s succinct, subtle and strikingly absurdist new play, leanly directed by Ivanka Polchenko, the audience is pulled into the lies and repression of an authoritarian regime, through (the protagonist’s) descent from denial to grief to prison.”
The Edinburgh Reporter: ★★★★★
“A tour de force by actor Nikolay Mulakov.
A modern tragic tale, told by Russian artists in exile in 2023.”
The Skinny: ★★★★★
“Unsettling, heart-breaking and remarkably compelling.
Lizorkina’s excellent script effortlessly balances the intimacy of the central story with an existential universality.”
Broadway World: ★★★★
“A story told through the lens of pure authenticity.
Vanya is Alive is not just important; it is something that everyone needs to be aware of right now.”
The Wee Review: ★★★★
“Unsettling play demands a lot from its audience, but delivers a point well made.”
The Theatre Times:
“This is theatre at its best – a lone voice in the dark, moving against the tide.”