Kyiv, Ukraine – Villagers whisper that Maryna, a refugee from Russia-annexed Crimea, kept a black hen’s egg under her armpit to hatch an evil critter that makes wishes come true.Maryna, the main heroine of Twenty One, a play staged in the tiny, basement-based Veterans’ Theatre in central Kyiv, has only one wish – that her soldier husband Petro comes back alive.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of listShe is also obsessed with incubating the egg her hen hatched before dropping dead.Living modestly in a rural house, Maryna frantically raises tens of thousands of dollars online to buy drones, weapons and power generators for the front line.That’s the ransom she thinks she pays for Petro’s life to an obnoxious woman in a black leather coat who personifies death and whose visits Maryna imagines.Despite an injection of magic realism, the play is “our reality,” actress Kateryna Svyrydenko, who plays Maryna, told Al Jazeera.“There is enough of everything, one can cry, laugh, think,” she said between a rehearsal and a performance in the jam-packed theatre.Founded in 2024, the Veterans’ Theatre functions as a four-month-long school for servicemen, their wives or widows who want to become playwrights.Discussed and dissected by fellow veteran students and professional instructors, their plays are staged at their graduation and then make their way to other Ukrainian theatres, serving as thespian therapy for the authors, actors and audiences.The soldiers-t …
