In 2014, down-on-her-luck writer Kate was thrilled to land an internship at a prestigious international magazine in Kyiv. What an opportunity to explore her ancestral homeland and culture first-hand! Little did Kate know she was about to become both witness to a major turning point in history, and an unwitting participant in it.
While on a mission to connect to her father’s Russian-Ukrainian roots in the Donbas region, Kate found herself in a military zone controlled by pro-Russian separatists. Under suspicion of being a “Western operative” for the newly minted Kyiv government, she was detained by armed militia and spent many days in captivity, her only access to the world through an inscrutable, volatile young local tasked with her custody.
The story of her abduction made international headlines. But Kate herself has never publicly talked about the events - until now.
As she pieces together memories in real time against the ever-looming reality of an ongoing war in Ukraine, Kate grapples with her own fractured cultural identity, the dissonance between public and personal narrative, and the surprising survival strategies we reach for in the face of improbable odds.
Ballad of the Motherland is loosely inspired by true events that took place during the early days of the Donbas conflicts (2014). All characters portrayed are fictional.
Keywords: Ukraine, Russia, Slavic diaspora, war, hostage, history, geopolitics, media, cultural identity, queer protagonist
Produced by Neptune Theatre, Halifax NS, March 2023
Genre: Drama
Acts: 1
Run time: 70 minutes
Content notes: Contains explicit language; discussion of death; scenes of physical violence; suggestion of sexual violence; use of sexist/homophobic/racist slurs
Cast size: 2 actors
Male roles: 1
Female roles: 1
Casting notes: Male actor should be late teens to early 20s; must speak fluent Russian. Female actor should be late 20s to late 30s; ideally someone with a queer first-gen Canadian identity.
"...this work’s impact cannot be understated in the day we live."
-- Art Critique
"...a chilling, darkly funny and very powerful play"
-- NS Reviews
"“People don’t like nuance, especially in war,” is the quote from the play that screamed out at me the loudest, and with the most weight and resonance."
-- Twisi Theatre Blog
