When the war in Ukraine broke out, actor Alexei Yudnikov had been living in Moscow for three decades, surrounded by family and friends and working with the Teatr.doc collective. A life that broke into a thousand pieces after the invasion ordered by Putin as a result of which Yudnikov, a Russophone with a Ukrainian passport, discovered that he lived in “an enemy country.” This was stated by this veteran actor in the presentation of Ma mare i la invasió total, the monologue that he has prepared in recent months under the direction of the also exiled Ukrainian Sasha Denísova.
The work, which will premiere on March 4 at the CCCB theater coinciding with the anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine, has been possible thanks to the first Barcelona Artistes residency in Risc. A program that allowed Sasha Denisova to reside in Barcelona from September to November 2022, while Yudnikov has been doing so since July of last year, a time in which she has been able to rehearse at Fabra i Coats.
Ma mare i la invasió total is a monologue with a flesh and blood protagonist: Olga Ivánovna, the mother of Sasha Denísova. This 81-year-old woman, who suffered from the bombings of World War II as a child, must now face the horrors of another conflict from Kyiv, the city where she decided to stay when a war began that she recounts daily to her daughter through WhatsApp. The story, narrated by Yudnikov through different characters, collects various conversations between the old Olga and the military, ex-husbands and even her own daughter, Sasha, in a piece that talks about human frailty and resistance.
This plot inevitably proposes a very personal work, both by the director and by Yudnikov, since his mother and brother also remain in Ukraine. This situation causes the actor great distress, he admits, knowing that he is safe and free to work while his family remains in the middle of a war zone. The play that he will represent can be “a therapy to overcome this trauma”, the actor has affirmed.
If Yudnikov’s decision to go into exile causes him doubts, the conviction to continue using dramaturgy as an instrument has not diminished in the least. It was precisely this attitude as a member of Teatr.doc that pushed him to flee Moscow. This Russian theater collective, the only one without public funding, has stood up against Putin’s policy, which has cost him numerous sanctions in recent years. “Opponents constantly ask themselves what is better, whether to act from the inside or keep the fight from the outside,” Yudnikov explains.
The representation of Ma mare i la invasió total will be the culminating point of the combined effort of the organizations Artist at Risk and No Callarem, the CCCB and the Institut de Cultura de Barcelona, ??organizations that have joined forces to offer artistic residence to the two artists Ukrainians to not only protect their lives, but offer them a place to pursue their careers and thus prevent them from being cut short by war.
This is not the first time that Artists at Risk and No Callarem have collaborated with the Barcelona City Council in a residency. In 2019 they did the same with the Kenyan Grace Munene, rapper, poet and LGTBIQ activist, a protection program that currently promotes 28 residencies in 26 different cities and which in the coming months will bring a new artist residency to Barcelona.