Ukraine war veterans turn to theatre to heal and rebuild lives

Sitting in a circle the day before opening night, Ukrainian war veterans and drama students took turns reading their lines from a script that travelled centuries to reach them. The actors — men and women in their 20s to 60s — included Ukrainian military veterans who had returned from the front with amputations, severe burns and sight loss. Others had endured war on the homefront. Many had never set foot on a stage before this play.

The production was created by Theater of Veterans, an organization founded by members of Ukraine’s Territorial Defense Forces that provides theatrical training and stage opportunities for former service members as part of their reintegration and recovery. 

At the centre was Olha Semioshkina, directing the group through her adaptation of “Eneida” by Ivan Kotliarevskyi — an 18th-century Ukrainian reimagining of Virgil’s “Aeneid.” “We knew the guys had just come back from rehabilitation, and we had to start from the very beginning,” Semioshkina said. “We spent about four months simply learning to communicate, to fall, to group, to roll, to get together. Then we began developing the body, taking off prosthetics and learning to exist without them.”

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