“They came out of hell”

It is night in the field. The soldiers, who broke out from the encirclement, are lying on the ground amidst pumpkins and some of them recall how they grew orchids before the army, recall the dead brothers-in-arms, and describe their condition as if between heaven and earth. Not allegorically, but literally. This is a short description of one of the scenes from the play Pocket, dedicated to last year’s events in Ilovaisk. One can read the full version on the website of Script Writing Studio. The audience will have an opportunity to see the play based on this script on August 29 in the Kinopanorama movie theater. This will be a premiere of theater production based on the tragic events. The date is not accidental, because namely on this day there should have been a “green” corridor for our soldiers to break out of the encirclement in Ilovaisk, but instead it became a corridor of death. The play’s author Maria Starozhytska in her work tells about her servicemen friends, who witnessed the tragedy. Director Yevhen Stepanenko has served at war for 1.5 years as deputy head of the headquarters of the First Voluntary Mobile Hospital named after Pirogov. This topic is close and painful to both of them. Now the creative team is rehearsing on a daily basis, as little time is left till the premiere show. After one of the rehearsals, The Day met with scriptwriter Maria Starozhytska.

Maria, why did you decide to use these events as the groundwork of the play?

“The war is going on, and the events must be highlighted in an honest and unbiased way after it’s over, but there are episodes that are already in the past, like the Ilovaisk pocket. The soldiers, when I say ‘Ilovaisk defeat,’ correct me by saying that this is ‘Ilovaisk betrayal.’ They have no other attitude to these events. Those who have survived are sure that they were betrayed by everyone: the military leadership of the country, the Russians who promised the ‘green corridor,’ and actually those who said that the volunteers are the military elite, they are the most needed units, and it was owing to them that Ukraine stood in this fight and didn’t surrender the Donbas, like Crimea, which is now occupied.

“Our creative union ‘Mashkino’ by Anastasia and Maria Starozhytsky is working on a film which will feature the events from the ‘pocket,’ but we are shooting it slowly, this is a documentary-fiction film, we won’t have time to complete it till the anniversary of the Ilovaisk pocket. That is why, when I received an offer to make a play several months ago, I was glad because this is an opportunity to speak about this on time. The anniversary of those tragic events is very important for those who were there, for people who must remember how many soldiers gave their lives those days. My friends who went from the Maidan to the voluntary unit ‘Donbas,’ found themselves namely in the Ilovaisk pocket. Later I met many friends who added details to this picture, which was in the head, because it was very important to speak about this.

“After all the play includes many real details, up to the tiniest ones, and in the final version almost all the characters were developed from several people, several prototypes. Specially for the play, I listened for a long time to one of the soldiers, he asked for a call sign ‘Veles,’ he’s from Horlivka, his family is there, and he joined the army voluntarily to liberate his native town from the enemy. And after I listened to him and asked about everything, I understood that I simply needed to sit and tell the story on paper.”

“THEY WERE SHELLED FROM A TANK FROM A CLOSE DISTANCE”

What days or events are in the groundwork of the play?

“This is a story of a group of servicemen who break through from the pocket. It starts on August 24 last year on the Independence Day, when there was a military parade in Kyiv, and a parade of the prisoners of war in Donetsk. On the same day in Ilovaisk our volunteer battalions took half of the town and understood that the help they asked from the General Headquarters was not arriving, and the encirclement is getting closed. With this understanding, they were celebrating the holiday. On August 29 the column that was passing along the ‘green corridor’ was shelled by Russian military men. My friends from reconnaissance of the Donbas Battalion who were moving out on a fire-engine were shelled from a tank from a close distance. Fantastic people got killed there, their call signs are ‘Eighth,’ ‘Akhim,’ ‘Red,’ ‘Bunny,’ they were simply incredible people. One of them, the future hero of the play, I mean the character – because the guys asked me to call only those who died heroes – is a soldier with call sign ‘Lavr,’ he was practically near this car, he was supposed to go on it, he saw with his own eyes how his brothers-in-arms were killed.

“The characters include a girl ‘Strilka,’ who was a nurse and who went to the front, following her beloved man, but he was killed earlier, before Ilovaisk events. There is ‘Elephant,’ he is an American by his passport, he was born in Odesa, when he was eight, his parents moved to the US. There he became a professional military man, and when the war with Russia broke out in his fatherland, he came to help his former fellow countrymen. There is ‘Poet’ among the heroes, he will be played by artist Andrii Yermolenko who created chevrons practically for all battalions. This five-people group in the play come across a Donetsk terrorist and Russian serviceman who are going to finish with those who are getting out of the pocket.”

“EVERYTHING DEPENDS ON THE SINCERITY OF THE ACTOR”

How did you find the actors for the play?

“Our lineup includes Oleksii Dorichevsky, Alina Skoryk, Vitalina Bibliv, Kostiantyn Popudrenko, Serhii Solopai, Andrii Maksymenko, Yevhen Avdieienko, and Ivan Kovalsky, as well as Andrii Yermolenko, whom I have already mentioned. We looked for some of the actors, some volunteered, but we didn’t arrange any casting, we are pressed in time, and here everything depends on the sincerity of the actor. I’m an author, I gave my work for consideration of the director. If these people will understand their heroes, there will be the planned effect. I will add that the story of ‘Tesey,’ played by Yevhen Avdieienko, pierces through the entire play. He’s a 30-year-old Kyivite, practically one of us, who was sitting near his computer all the time, followed all the events on the Internet, put likes, consulted by phone those who were coming out from the encirclement. But he considers that taking part in a war is not for him. He has his own psychology.”

We have many people like him in Ukraine. They are called the “couch warriors.”

“This is an important character for the understanding of society’s attitude to those who went to the front voluntarily, not by mobilization. And understanding of the former by the latter is one of the most important tasks of our work. There is also a love story line in the play.”

You have taken even the lyrical note?

“There should be some. We have a story of love of the volunteer ‘Lavr’ and a girl Nastia, who’s not shown on stage, but he’s talking to her all the time during the stage. She’s a girl he knows since Maidan events, and he understood only at the war that he loves her. This is what keeps him alive after his brothers-in-arms are killed. But his way to Nastia is very difficult and tragic, and even at the end of the play neither the audience, nor the author know whether ‘Lavr’ got to Nastia, whether the person who came through deaths and kills pain with alcohol and stirs pain with alcohol still has energy to create his life and a new country like he had dreamt. Can this girl from Tesey’s world, who follows the events on the Internet, be close to this serviceman after he returns?”

“I HAVE A DREAM TO TRAVEL WITH THE PLAY ACROSS MILITARY UNITS”

I know that part of the tickets you give to the servicemen and the families of those who were killed in Ilovaisk.

“I know for sure that the premiere of August 29 will be attended by relatives of those who were killed in Ilovaisk pocket, part of the tickets will be given to the servicemen, part will be sold, to compensate the expenses – so far we are working exclusively on volunteer grounds, to be more exact, we are paying from our pockets, but we have been looking for sponsor and will continue to do so.”

Will it be a one-time performance, or a continuation of the production is planned?

“The question depends on the success with finding sponsors. Interested directors can stage the play anywhere. I have even translated it into English, it will be shown in the collection ‘Why,’ which I’m planning to publish before the end of August. Our group will continue to perform. I have a dream to travel with the play across military units, in the places of dislocation – I have been at the frontline, I know there is a need for this. I also have a dream to raise the money to buy projectors with screens with the help of the performances, because many servicemen, especially at the second-third line of the front are suffering from not having an opportunity to see the films at leisure time.”

“MOTHERS ARE STILL WAITING”

The play premieres on an important date. Can you feel that the pain from this and other tragedies in society has been soothed?

“Everything depends on the information stream the society receives. Now the information about the events on the frontline has been reduced. That is why people calm down, it seems that nothing is going on, the number of the victims is low. Many people don’t want to hear about that, because it’s summer, everyone wants to rest. Self-soothing is the nationwide dream: if the war is not over officially, it is over at least for me. That is why with this play we want to change the situation of indifference and remind of things that are painful.”

To stir up the society?

“No way. Just remind that it happened, everything is going on, the bodies of those who were killed in Ilovaisk haven’t been found, nameless servicemen are still buried. Mothers are still waiting, hoping that maybe some of them are in prison on the territory of the enemy, but alive. We should remind about everything, and everything will be present in our play. Because it ends on August 29 this year, and every character tells about himself namely on the day of the premiere: what they have come through and what they have gotten in the end. I won’t retell this most interesting moment.”

“I HAVE LIVED THROUGH THE STORIES OF BREAKING THROUGH IN ILOVAISK”

You were so emotional about these events. Did it help you or, vice versa, prevented you from writing the play?

“It was easy for me to write the play, because I had lived through the stories of breaking through from the Ilovaisk pocket and heard them from many people before. Who was there, who was wounded before, who got to a basement with the wounded and got out in a day, and who had to spend 100 days in imprisonment in a basement.”

What is Ilovaisk for you? A starting point? A limit?

“For me it is a place where out of three of my friends, who went from Maidan to Donbas Battalion, one was killed on August 10, it was Vadym Antonov, this was the first entering  to Ilovaisk. Then Mykhailo Savulchyk was wounded on August 22. And actually the four-day breaking through the encirclement after Valerii Lavrenov’s column was shelled. Of course, the results of official investigation are interesting for me, but I have no illusions as for what would be there and who would be accused.”

What reaction to the play do you expect from the society?

“I’m not planning anything. I have taken an interview from poet Andrii Voznesensky who died before the war between Ukraine and Russia broke out. He said, ‘I’m writing for five people. The names of none of them will tell you anything. Only their opinion is important to me. All in all, I don’t care whether millions will like it later.’ I was surprised to hear that, but now I understand that in fact the opinion of my close people is important to me, and if someone else will be touched, it will be good too.”