They saw War; a play about forgiveness, anger and misery. The Ukrainian actress Ksenia Marasanova will perform this week in Nieuw-Weerdinge and Emmen with the performance. The play was supposed to be performed in the run-up to May 4 and 5, 2020 during the celebration of 75 years of freedom, but was postponed due to the corona measures. It can go on this year, but the performance feels extra loaded for the actress due to the war in her native country.
This year it is finally time. Marasanova, who lives in Zwolle, is back on stage with her solo performance. A piece about war with stories from eyewitnesses. It is a story of hope and fear, of suffering and forgiveness. A story of war, but it is not clear which war. The dates she plays are carefully chosen. “We are following the liberation path,” explains the actress. “The dates on which certain villages and towns are liberated or when the liberation is celebrated, I perform.”
On the day of the liberation of Nieuw-Weerdinge, the decor of the multifunctional center De Badde in Nieuw-Weerdinge is being built. The freedom buttons with peace sign on them are being prepared for the visitors and there is a bus at the entrance where money can be donated. Because all income goes to aid programs for Ukrainian refugees.
Marasanova herself fled the Soviet Union at the age of seventeen after the fall of the Iron Curtain. “Suddenly you could leave for the free west,” she explains. Because anti-Semitism was rampant in Ukraine, some of her (Jewish) relatives decided to leave.
In the Netherlands Marasanova enjoyed the freedom. When she created the performance two years ago with director Paul Dekker, she decided to dedicate the play to both of her grandmothers. “Both my grandmothers have experienced war,” says the actress. “My Jewish-Ukrainian grandmother could not hear German until her death. Literally. She was in so much pain. And my Russian grandmother, who spent the nine hundred days of the siege of Leningrad [nu Sint Petersburg] has survived, has the greatest compassion for the Germans. That has always fascinated me. How is that possible? How can you go through such a terrible thing and still be forgiven in the end. And this performance is ultimately the result of that.”
Meanwhile, her hometown of Kharkiv has been under fire for some time. Although she has been gone for a long time, she still has friends living there. She therefore also gets a lot from the situation in Kharkiv. “What they experience there, it is a lot of fights, but most of all they fight. They want to kick the Russians out. They hate the occupier.” What’s happening there puts her on edge. Also on stage. “The pain I feel makes it even more intense,” she says. “Acting is a profession and you act your character who is super happy or who is super happy, regardless of whether there is misery. But I think it gets even stronger.”
In the Netherlands she found the freedom she was looking for. It took her a while to live with the freedom, but she made it. She hopes that the sense of freedom she has found can be felt by Ukrainians as well as Russians. And she also hopes to have an impact a little closer. “With this performance I hope to celebrate liberation and freedom together with the audience.”