ANDRIY BONDARENKO
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 has been a participant in the ongoing Worldwide Ukrainian Play Readings, a project curated by John Freedman. Bondarenko is the literary director of the Lviv Puppet Theater (Ukraine) and the author of numerous plays shortlisted at major Ukrainian Drama festivals and presented in many European cities. Major productions have been Atomic Mermaid, Neue Buhne Senftenberg Theatre, Germany (2023); Ultima Thule, Koleso Theatre, Kyiv (2023); Lviv Tango, Maria Zankovetska Theater, Lviv (2023); Survivor Syndrome, Harmyder Theater, Lutsk (2022); Fox, Dark as a Light Night, one of a two-part production entitled, The Light from Below: Stories from Ukrainian Basements, Barons Court Theatre, London (2022); and Asshole, Golden Gate Theatre, Kyiv (2020). Bondarenko directed the film short, Night with Natalia (2017), which was presented at film festivals in Kyiv and Prague.
As a playwright . . . Bondarenko has undergone a change in writing style since the war began. His work used to be highly realistic. Now, particularly with Ghost Land, it falls more into the magical realism territory with heavy doses of mysticism.
“When this brutal war happened, I just felt that the realistic way doesn’t allow me to picture how I’m feeling,” Bondarenko said. “Also, the real documentary material is so brutal, it’s so horrible that I cannot stand it. So when I was writing about this, I was moving in some mystical, magical, and fiery style. It’s easier for me to talk about things in this way. It allows me to speak more freely and give me more means to tell something.”
“The ghosts in these stories are haunting me now . . . To live in the reality of the war is unbearable. It’s like leaning over some very big black hole and you can’t get used to it. It influences you. It changes you. I have all these deaths, all these dead friends inside me now. I’m full of these ghosts haunting me. They want to speak with me. I want to speak with them. They want to be heard. It’s really like I’m living in some half ghost land because every day we deal with the deaths. It’s so unbearable.”
From an interview by Bridgette M. Redman in The Argonaut