Endless February II

With the series Endless February, Alesia Andrushevska and Iana Gudzenko give a human face to the war by presenting contemporary Ukrainian plays. Each stage reading or performance is followed by a discussion.  

Take the Rubbish Out, Sasha 

Kiev-based playwright Natal’ya Vorozhbit wrote the magical realist play Take the Rubbish Out, Sasha in 2014, when the Russian army annexed the Donbas region of Eastern Ukraine. A year later, the Russian army occupied the Crimea in Southern Ukraine.  

Sasha, a colonel in the Ukrainian army who has died of a heart failure, sees his widow Katia and his stepdaughter Oksana prepare his funeral feast. A year later, the country will be engulfed in the events that can make the dead rise. Sasha is ready to be resurrected, but his family is not. They are reluctant to bury him again. 

About the makers 

Iana Gudzenko  Alumnus of the European Theatre Convention 2019/22. Besides being the head director at the Zaporozhye  Theatre –Laboratory Vie from 2019- 2021 and having staged many professional theatre productions, she has also been working as a drama teacher with children, student and adults for more than 10 years. In the Netherlands she has collaborated with De Toneelmakerij, AJTS, De Krakeling and De Balie.  

Alesia Andrushevska is a Ukrainian theatre and film actress who left Ukraine after the Russian invasion. She is a member of the National Union of Theatre Workers of Ukraine. She currently performs in Women in Troy, as told by our mothers by Dood Paard/Tiago Rodrigues.  

Oksana Borbat was a leading actress at the Wild Theater in Ukraine from 2016 to 2019.  She starred in more than 24 movie projects. When the war broke out, she moved to Amsterdam where she unites friends and colleagues within a Ukrainian theatre practice. She directed a children's play that premiered in Amstelveen in 2022.