Back
Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
The Lesya Ukrainka National Academic Drama Theater and the Ivan Franko National Academic Drama Theater presented a joint production ΚΑΣΣ_ΑΝΔΡΑ "KASS_ANDRA." The production is based on the story of the ancient Cassandra, which the creators combined with the plot of a woman from a contemporary war zone who has lost her memory about herself.
The premiere was documented by ZN.UA photojournalist Vasyl Artyushenko.
The story begins with Kass. She wakes up with no memory of her past. Her partner Agam — an influential politician — attempts to restore her memories. He turns to psychotherapist Dr. Apollon for help. Together they try to reconstruct the woman's biography, but the version of events Kass offers gradually makes her doubt what she’s been told.
Their explanations do not answer all the heroine’s questions. Another story begins to appear in her dreams — the one connected to Cassandra, daughter of the Trojan king Priam and a priestess of Apollo. In the mythological line she foresees the fall of Troy, but no one believes her. After the city falls, Cassandra becomes Agamemnon’s captive and goes with him to Mycenae. There she witnesses his death.
Through these two plot lines, the play juxtaposes the contemporary world and the ancient one. The gradual return of memories forces Kass to reassess what she has been told about her past and to search for her own version of events. When the heroine learns the truth, she faces a choice that will determine her future and the development of events in the play.
The production uses motifs from several works of ancient and European dramatic tradition. Among them are Homer’s Iliad, Aeschylus’s Agamemnon, Jean-Paul Sartre’s The Trojans based on Euripides, and a dramatic poem by Lesya Ukrainka.
Cassandra’s image in these texts is tied to foreseeing disaster and being unable to be heard. In the production this motif is transposed to modern circumstances. The problem is no longer only foreseeing the future, but trying to recover repressed experience and establish what actually happened.
Director Grzegorz Jarzyna links this line to the memory of war victims.
"For millennia new Cassandras have warned humanity about the tragedy of war — and their voices remained unheard. We repeatedly repress traumatic experience, forget the victims, and reproduce the same mechanisms of violence," says director Grzegorz Jarzyna. "In our version the modern Cassandra becomes the guardian of memory: she recalls what others try to erase. She demands truth and retribution for crimes, because only truth can break the cycle of violence."
The female experience of war is a separate plot line in the production. Through Kass’s story the creators address the experiences of people who fell under the rule of conquerors, lost their homes, or suffered violence.
"Women rarely start wars, but they endure their harshest consequences while remaining unheard — no monuments are erected for them, no songs or poems are written about them like about male heroes. ΚΑΣΣ_ΑΝΔΡΑ "KASS_ANDRA" gives them a voice," the Franko Theater notes.
In the production memory is not only a trait of the main heroine but also one of the key elements of the plot. Reconstructing Kass’s past gradually changes her perception of her own life and of the people who try to explain to her who she was.
The title ΚΑΣΣ_ΑΝΔΡΑ "KASS_ANDRA" directly refers to the name of the ancient heroine. At the same time the modern Kass is not a literal reproduction of the mythological character: her story unfolds in a different time and under different circumstances. The connection between them is built through motifs of war, loss, memory, and the voice of a person who is not wanted or able to be heard.
Document: PDF proof of the original version of the news item "Антична Кассандра та сучасна жінка: театри Франка та Лесі Українки представили спільну виставу". It records the publication content at the moment of the first scan, the preservation date and the source: ZN.ua.
