A theatre in Mykolaiv is celebrating its one-hundredth anniversary with empty halls and a cramped cellar as guests are being ushered underground because of Russian air strikes.
“We can’t run the events on our big stage under the roof. It is very dangerous. There are many missiles that hit the city centre,” says Artem Svystun, the theatre’s director.
“That’s why we run our events in the cellar, where people are already in a safe place.”
The theatre’s doors were shut for the first half of the war as Mykolaiv quickly came under threat by Russian forces. The city that housed half a million people before the start of the war is just 70 kilometres west of Kherson, causing it to be pounded by artillery fire and airstrikes.
But a European aid fund helped Svystun and his team transform the theatre’s cellar that used to house a gym into a 35-seat venue.
Most of its performances are now confined to that small space, except when it hosts shows outside for displaced people. And the seats in front of the theatre’s main stage are covered by a white sheet, protecting them from falling fragments from the chandelier and the ceiling.
Olha Storozhuk is a young singer and actress who performs at the theatre. She says her performances are why she wakes up every morning.
“I know that my work is needed,” she says. “When I sing, or we play on stage, people come and say ‘thank you, amazing, for this hour or 90 minutes we returned to that life we had… that wonderful, that peaceful life we had.’”
One of the shows, entitled ‘The Cats Refugees’, is meant as an educational story for children.
“[The play] shows kids how to behave in this difficult situation when the mischief came to our home… to Ukraine, how to stay calm and help each other,” says actress and director Kateryna Bohdanova.
“That is not exactly a fairy tale, as what is going on here in our country is not really a fairy tale.”
A missile hit the theatre in autumn, but it quickly opened its doors right after, with slabs of wood now covering many of its windows.
“‘Life doesn’t stop, it doesn’t stop,” says the theatre’s director, like a mantra.
“The theatre lives.”