Ukrainian playwright Andriy Bondarenko brings the horrors inflicted on his compatriots by Russia’s invasion to surrealistic life with three intertwining tales.
—Martín Hernández, Stage Raw

The plays in Bondarenko’s Ghost Land blend metaphysics and despondency, grappling with political trauma in the way Sarah Kane’s plays grappled with personal trauma. Not that they serve up lectures; rather, they offer a schrei of despair for the victims of a kind of home invasion on a national scale.
—Steven Leigh Morris, American Theatre

Tales of horrible atrocities came out of the country from the start of hostilities . . . The reality of Bondarenko’s ghost land is vividly brought to life in Frederique Michel’s staging. It’s simple yet involving.
—Rob Stevens, Haines his way.com

Ghost Land, directed by Frederique Michel, emerges as a series of vignettes which at first seem to have little in common. Yes, they all deal with this particular war, and from the side of those whose nation has been invaded, but other than that . . . But this is almost deceptive. Increasingly we see how all these emerge naturally from one another as naturally as the denizens of a forest. Eventually. When the final revelation comes, it hits like a thunderclap . . . the full context of all we've experienced since the lights came up at the start becomes clear . . . Among other things, the play ceased to be about just what is happening in Ukraine or even about the hell of modern war. It became about me, and you, and everyone who has ever had to endure the trauma of real evil. Of those moments when the worst of us turn this earth into a real Hell. More, how do we heal after that?
—David MacDowell Blue, The World Through Night-Tinted Glasses

From the City Garage world premiere of Ghost Land in Santa Monica, California. Video by Anthony M. Sannazzaro.

Scenes from the City Garage world premiere in Santa Monica, California. Photos by Paul M. Rubenstein.

An introduction to the play by Andriy Bondarenko

Andriy is a playwright, but also a philosopher and poet — his plays sear the heart with vivid insights about what it means to live in contemporary Ukraine, trying to find identity and meaning when the country is under attack by a neo-imperial neighbor.
— Noah Birksted-Breen, Artistic Director, Sputnik Theatre, London

ANDRIY BONDARENKO is a playwright, journalist, and culturologist, who holds a PhD in Philosophy. He was a co-founder of the Theater of Playwrights in Kyiv and is the author of numerous plays shortlisted at major Ukrainian drama festivals and presented in many European cities. Bondarenko is also the literary director of the Lviv Puppet Theater.

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