Mothermotherland

Created by Slovo. Theater Group

This performance is co-presented by coLAB Arts and Rutgers University - Mason Gross School of the Arts.

Pre-registration is not available for this event. Arrive early to secure seating. For special accommodation requests, contact the Mason Gross School of the Arts box office.

For travel and location information, click here for the Mason Gross School of the Arts event listing.

Performance run time is approximately 40 minutes and will be followed by a talk-back with the artists and a video from the residency Slovo team who are still living and working in Kharkiv.

Mothermotherland, by Slovo. Theater Group, is an original devised theater performance developed over 5 weeks by Ukrainians in exile with playwright Audrey Rose Dégez. The performance is based on the artists’ personal experiences, the war in Ukraine, and takes inspiration from Mykoly Khyvylovy’s 1924 novella I am (a Romantic), where the head of the local Cheka, a communist law enforcement agency, must decide whether or not to sentence his mother to death in the name of the ideals of the Commune.

BACKGROUND:

In Khyvylovy’s 1924 novella “I am (a Romantic),” the head of the local Cheka, a communist law enforcement agency, must decide whether or not to sentence his mother to death in the name of the ideals of the Commune. Pittsburgh-born and Paris-based playwright Audrey Rose Dégez applied to residency Slovo, an artistic residency in Kharkiv, where Khyvylovy lived, worked, and ultimately committed suicide, as a protest against Soviet extermination of Ukrainian artists and intellectuals in 1933. Her project proposal was to write and workshop an original work based on his work and around the topic of “Motherland.”

The Russian invasion of February 24th rendered the original project idea impossible, but through the generosity of a large number of private and institution supporters, Audrey Rose was able to bring the project to the United States. On July 13th, she left her home and husband Louis in France and returned to her Motherland with her 6-month old daughter Lili Maritchka to prepare for the project. On August 14th, she was joined by Daria Holovchanska, Yuliia Linnik, Maksym Panchenko, Olesia Zakharova, and Veronika Shuster in Pittsburgh and over the last 5 weeks the group has been devising the performance that you will witness tonight.

SPONSORS:

A special thank you to our sponsors James Miller, The Posner Foundation, Allan Holt, The Wilke Foundation, JP Morgan Charitable Giving Fund, Larry Lebowitz and Carrie Thompson of Denton's, Cohen & Grigsby legal practice, Louis Dégez, and David & Dawne Hickton