How can one become, for the Ukrainian audience, a discoverer of works of global renown that have never before been staged in Ukraine? What mission does theatre fulfill? How can one remain true to the credo that theatre must “lead a person through dark corridors where they fear to look, and bring them out into the light” – into transfiguration? And ultimately, how can one find in the dramas of the brilliant Euripides not merely the ‘spirit of Euripides,’ but the Holy Spirit – and, through that, raise in Euripides’ tragedy The Trojan Women painful themes of today’s war, loss, and captivity? We discuss this with Yevhen Khudzyk, already familiar to the readers of Patriarkhat, director of the UCU school theatre “On the Pillars of Simeon.”
— For me, it began with a search for an answer to the question: what should theatre — what should art — do here and now, in our time and on our land? This is always a vital question. But now, in a time of war, when we are constantly burying those we love, it becomes a question of existence itself. In other words: should the muses fall silent when the cannons speak? What kind of art is needed not just to justify its place, but to become indispensable?
The answer, I believe, must grow from our own soil — from this pain, from what is real: from the wound that aches, from the chasms that open beneath us. The answer must turn pain into something radiant, must lift a person up, give them wings. Art must keep proving — with today’s data — the theorem that the force of ascent is greater than the pull of gravity. That’s what theatre must do. From antiquity, which gave us the notion of catharsis, to the present moment — this is what I strive for.
There’s also another way of looking at theatre — as a form of escape, a way to unwind and forget reality. But that’s categorically not my path. I don’t believe art exists to entertain; I believe it exists to uplift. It helps us carry weight, to make burdens bearable. It uplifts by reminding us that we have wings — and that without them, we are not fully human. That, to me, is the true mission of art. When we use it for anything less, we betray that mission.
That’s precisely why, through The Trojan Women, we turned to a theme that is perhaps the most painful — and most silenced — today: the theme of captivity. It’s one of the darkest realities of war, especially with an enemy like ours. Sometimes, soldiers choose death over the horror of being taken captive. And those who have survived captivity — like the Yurko Yatsenko or late Ihor Kozlovskyi — their testimonies, alongside the tragedy of “Azov” and so many of our other defenders, reveal just how unspeakably deep that wound is. We see the mothers of Azov walking the streets, crying out in their silent, stoic grief.
This is a subject that frightens everyone — both those who live it through loss and suffering, and those who, as Maria Matios once wrote, “cross to the other side of the street.” But how do you speak of it?
It was Ulyana Holovach — a woman of profound spirit and keen intellect — who first introduced me to The Trojan Women. She said, “This text is so beautiful; let’s stage it.” I trust her taste, but a suggestion is only the starting point. One must understand how to bring a text to life, especially one as complex as this. For nearly two years, it sat on the shelf because I couldn’t yet see how to make it live.
And then, last summer, I was invited to teach in the master’s program in acting at Lviv National University. I had already worked with half of the group — both as teachers and actors — in “SHTUKU” theatre. I felt this text could really resonate here. It was also significant that The Trojan Women had never been staged in Ukraine before, so we had the chance to bring this gem of world drama out of its shell.
For me, working with such remarkable texts is both an honor and a joy — and also a challenge. It’s a privilege to help bring them to the Ukrainian stage, to introduce them to a Ukrainian audience. I’ve already had this kind of experience with the works of T.S. Eliot (Murder in the Cathedral), Hryhorii Skovoroda (The Poor Lark), and Romanos the Melodist (the kontakion Mary and the Magi) — texts that had never before been performed in Ukrainian.
This is vitally important for our culture: that such texts take root here, that they move from the realm of literature into that of theatre, and that they fully realize the dramatic potential the author placed within them.
Moreover, I hold on to a perhaps naïve belief: if Euripides’ The Trojan Women were performed on stages around the world — and truly heard — there might be fewer wars.
Euripides has only been published in Ukrainian twice. On the left is a new edition by A priori from 2023. On the right is the edition by Osnova from 1993.
— There’s a theory that Euripides wrote The Trojan Women in response to the destruction of Melos — a tragic event of his time, when the Athenians slaughtered all the men and took the women into captivity. In that sense, the play can be read as a condemnation of his own compatriots’ cruelty. In the Western theatrical tradition, it’s often interpreted as an anti-war work. But is it really only about condemning war?
— It’s not so much anti-war as it is anti-imperial. Euripides, with remarkable courage, strips away the sacred aura surrounding Greece’s imperial myths. He doesn’t just call for an end to warfare — as we often hear in modern political slogans — but rather dismantles the heroism and pageantry of the conquest of Troy. He forces the Greek audience — whose imagination had been shaped and wounded by imperial narratives — to confront the horrors that arise from their so-called “noble” victories.
Through the voices of the gods, Euripides delivers a warning: “You will pay for this for centuries.” It will not vanish without consequence. That’s why The Trojan Women is less an anti-war statement than a searing critique of imperial ideology. To stage such a work was, and remains, a bold civic act — especially considering that Euripides wrote it during a brutal military campaign conducted by his own people.
I believe Euripides also offers the audience a glimmer of hope — the hope of justice. Justice is proclaimed from the very beginning of the play, in the dialogue between Athena and Poseidon, the gods who determine the Greeks’ fate. They declare: “We will destroy them as soon as they set sail.” Everything is set from the start, and we, the audience, wait for the moment when punishment for their crimes will be carried out. The Greeks, despite their apparent victory, are already condemned. We know destruction is coming.
And it is between their triumph and their downfall that the drama unfolds: the Trojan women being divided by lot among the victors — the very men who killed their fathers, brothers, children, and husbands.
If the production’s central theme is captivity, then its core question is this: how does one preserve dignity? How does one survive captivity and remain whole?
The Trojan women do go on living, even in the face of unimaginable loss. Andromache’s young son — Hecuba’s grandson — the one in whom their last hopes were placed, as a possible comfort in exile and captivity, is murdered. Troy is burning. They lose everything, and yet they go on living. But is that life still marked by hope?
— To me, this is the very heart of The Trojan Women: the affirmation — even the glorification — of dignity. But that dignity fully reveals itself only in performance. How does one endure captivity? How does one find strength when nothing and no one offers support? Because this play isn’t only about the words — it creates a space for action. The text of the play is not so much made of words as it is a space for action — action that moves through, between, and even against the words.
Take Andromache, for example. Out of fear, the Greeks throw her young son from a tower — but who truly lost their human dignity: she, or the murderers? She cannot save her child, yet as she is led to a forced marriage, she becomes a living reminder of Greek cowardice and cruelty.
This brings to mind Ihor Kozlovskyi’s account of captivity. After torture failed to break him, he was forced to sign false self-incriminating statements under threats directed at his son, who was immobilized by illness. But that signature did not destroy him. He emerged from captivity radiating love — and yet, he called himself a debtor of love, indebted to those who prayed for him, who fought for him.
I think this is something essential for all of us: to draw strength from dignity when facing trials.
— In the play, Hecuba wants to throw herself into the fire, and only refrains because she’s physically prevented. So what kind of support, what kind of dignity is that?
— Hecuba says: “I shall leap into the flames — I shall perish with my homeland in fire: in this lies my salvation.” With her homeland — that is where salvation lies. Do you see? I suggest we read this not as a cry for self-destruction, but as an act of faith — faith in salvation through fire and fidelity. A longing not to abandon one’s land as it burns, but to remain within that suffering, to endure it. That is where redemption is found.
It resonates deeply with the Christian vision: that in defeat — as in Christ’s crucifixion — there is hidden victory.
— That’s a Christian interpretation. And it’s expressed in the final moments of your production. There’s hope — not in the text itself, but in the scenography.
— A dramatic text exists within the space of written words. But it is revealed in many ways: through song, through mise-en-scène, scenography, études. We must remember that a play is written for the stage, for performance — not merely for reading. And how it is revealed depends on how it is performed. And how it is performed depends on how it is heard.
Of course, one could say plainly: “All is lost, I’ll throw myself into the fire” — and leave it at that. But Euripides doesn’t end there. For me, it’s about choosing life. About the Christian ability to accept what fate delivers. And I believe this Christian reading doesn’t contradict Euripides — it unveils him.
Let us return to the theme of fate and the punishment of the Greeks — where it all began. Poseidon warns the Athenians: “If you believe you can conquer and celebrate, you will not escape destruction.” This is more than a threat; it is a revelation of divine law — a principle Euripides communicates through his characters. He shows that justice does not always mean immediate punishment, but for the Greeks, it is inevitable.
— On stage, there are essentially only two Greeks who act: the herald, who conveys the will of others, and Menelaus — the husband of Helen, supposedly the cause of all the horrors. Let’s start with the herald. In many Western productions, he’s portrayed as a victim of circumstance — a “small man” with a sorrowful face, forced to deliver cruel orders, sometimes even showing signs of sympathy for the captives. But in your production, he’s completely different: dressed in modern clothing, while the Trojan women wear garments of antiquity.
— Again, much lies between the lines and depends on interpretation. In our production, the herald Talthybius represents the archetypal occupier. The boots, the suspenders, the khaki — these are not tied to any one period. They are symbolic, stripped of historical specificity. He is the voice through which all the orders are delivered. And as the drama unfolds, he becomes not merely a messenger, but a driving force in the narrative.
The herald is in constant dialogue with Hecuba. To me, it seems likely that his visits are motivated by more than just official duties. There may be a personal interest — a desire to possess Queen Hecuba. The tragedy of his character lies in this: one can take possession of another, but one cannot force them to love.
Even Hecuba — even if she wanted to make herself love in order to save her grandson or her daughter — even when she urges her daughter-in-law to do so — finds herself unable. Because, as Shevchenko wrote: “Love is the grace of God.”
— Another pair of characters are Helen and Menelaus. Helen is separate from the other Trojan women, and all this grief is supposedly because of her. What is her place in this story?
— In the play, Helen is cursed, blamed for every calamity, seen as the cause of the war. One might think she’s portrayed as the root of all evil. But Euripides is far from simplistic — Helen’s character is much more nuanced. In her monologue, she reflects on the vulnerability and powerlessness of a woman. And the question arises: did she ever truly have a choice?
In terms of plot — no. In Menelaus’s house, she was little more than a trophy. According to Greek mythology, she was a pawn in the gods’ games — Aphrodite gave her to Paris in exchange for the golden apple. After Paris’s death, another man, Deiphobus, took her by force, declaring: “Now you are my wife.” Her lack of agency is unmistakable. And yet, she alone is blamed — as if she, not Menelaus, had brought about the fall of Troy.
— It’s always easiest to blame the weakest.
— Yes, Euripides was among the first in world literature to raise what we now call “women’s issues.” Just think of the women at the heart of his tragedies: Hecuba, Cassandra, Andromache, Helen, Alcestis, Medea, and others.
But in her final condemnation of Helen, Hecuba exposes something deeply human — and deeply unsettling. She says: “You served not virtue, but chance.” Helen’s choices, her actions, were driven not by virtue, but by convenience — by favorable circumstances. And isn’t that something we, too, are often guilty of? We justify our decisions by pointing to circumstances, to what’s expedient. This is a frightening truth — both in our time and 2,500 years ago. Too often, we serve chance rather than virtue.
A rare few, like Vasyl Stus, refused to serve chance — and were crushed for it. They told him, “What do you want? To write in Ukrainian? Fine, write — get published. But these are the circumstances. Don’t make trouble. Don’t make this harder than it needs to be.” And they made arguments that sounded reasonable, even persuasive. But he did not bend. He did not serve chance. The very fact that his poems survived at all is a miracle. Despite the destruction of his manuscripts, he became one of the greatest poets of our people. He overcame circumstances that seemed impossible to overcome.
Helen herself admits: “My beauty brought me not the palm of glory, but bitter bondage.” In this, she is honest — yet her service to chance is the root of her guilt. It reflects the moral weakness within us all: that impulse to excuse our choices by appealing to circumstance. Euripides sees this darkness and exposes it — placing it under the magnifying glass of the stage.
— To conclude our discussion of The Trojan Women and its interpretations, let’s turn to a less obvious, yet no less vital character: the homeland. Your production centers on the theme of captivity, whereas a recent British adaptation, for example, approaches the play through the lens of the refugee experience. In that version, the roles are performed by Syrian women who interweave their own stories of flight and loss into Euripides’ text. And through them, the motif of hope emerges.
Captivity and exile may seem like separate themes, but they converge at a single point: the loss of one’s land. How does your production explore this theme?
— I’d prefer not to begin with the land itself, but with the experience of being torn from it. The Trojan women are not simply refugees. What we witness is an attempt to sever a people from their homeland — whether Trojans, Ukrainians, or Crimean Tatars. This is exile: the destruction of roots. Perhaps a more accurate title would be The Exiled or The Uprooted. Euripides understood with striking clarity what it means to be violently uprooted.
But is this only about Troy? Hecuba’s opening line — “Troy is no more, nor are Troy’s rulers” — Troy is no more! These words resonate far beyond the plot. They signal that the play is not just about Troy — it is about us. She says: “Where do I sit? Beside the tent of King Agamemnon.” And where are we? Are we not sitting beside the tent of King Putin?
For those of us in Lviv, it is essential to remember this. To recall the words of Vasyl Stus: “…and nearby, the Soviet garden.” It is very close indeed.
— Is that where the front line is—that Soviet garden?
— Yes — just the distance of an Oreshnik [Russian rocket] away. And not only that. Don’t we still carry remnants of that Soviet garden within us — its metastases? Isn’t it still lodged in the heart? Isn’t there a part of us that still longs to cling to that tent — as if to a culture, a language, a tsar’s boot that will make all the decisions for us? The Trojan Women is about us. And the danger is that we might not feel it.
As it is written: “One more moment, and you will lose your name.” One more moment — and Ukraine may cease to exist. We must live through this reality consciously — even here, in Lviv. What once happened can happen again, though in different forms: we’ll compromise, open Baturyn, meet halfway…
That is why it is absolutely critical for us to express the theme of the land. The entire scenographic foundation of this production is Troy — made of sand. At the end of the performance, that land is carted away in a wheelbarrow — just as the black soil was carted off in the twentieth century, or as rare earth metals are extracted today, in the twenty-first. And then come the tourists, to visit the ruins of Troy or Mariupol — it makes no difference. They’ll put on a vyshyvanka, sing “Oh, you moonlight”… But that is not love of the land, not love of culture, not service — it is exploitation. And that is something entirely different from Hecuba’s ‘in this lies my salvation.’
— You mentioned songs. While the British recontextualize and modernize the text through documentary theatre and the personal stories of Syrian women, your production of The Trojan Women includes many songs — just as Euripides’ does. But his are Greek, and yours are Ukrainian — both ancient and contemporary.
— We didn’t want to use music merely to decorate the emotional landscape. We wanted to evoke the very birth of song itself. The Trojan Women seemed like fertile ground for this — for recreating the miracle of how song comes into being. And song, more often than not, is born of pain. Even rhythmic wedding songs — like “Oh, Halia, young Halia… they tied Halia to a pine tree by her braids” — carry sorrow within them.
What we tried to show was precisely this: that song emerges from pain. That it holds within it the possibility of transfiguration — a means by which a person can pass through grief and be changed.
And once again, in this exploration we turned directly to Euripides’ own words: “Even the wretched have their Muse — they draw forth song from their pain.” In a way, this is also a key to understanding the origins of our own epic tradition — and a response to the question: must the Muses fall silent when the cannons speak?
Song allows sorrow to be lived through. Just as our performance does. Audience members told us that, despite the tears and the heavy emotions, they left with a sense of relief — of purification. And that, for me, is the purpose of theatre: to lead a person through dark corridors they would rather avoid, and bring them out into the light. Theatre helps us process trauma, unlock inner rooms, and face what we often refuse to face in life. It is not just an immersion in pain, but a path toward its transformation.
That, to me, is the therapeutic power of art — a power that lives in Euripides’ text, and one that the British production also recognizes in the context of Syrian refugees. We may interpret it differently, but note this: the feeling of hope is shared.
— It’s hard to imagine how you managed to work with such a complex ancient text given such limited resources. In Britain, where classical culture is embedded in the education system and carries a special cultural weight, The Iliad alone has been translated over forty times in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Meanwhile, we have only one published translation — an excellent one, but still only one. So how were the students able to meaningfully engage with the text?
— Our collaborative work on the play with young actors — master’s students — was a challenge for all of us. In theatre pedagogy, there’s a tradition of offering ancient material to first-year students, to help them develop articulation, a sense of rhythm in speech, and an understanding of the conventionality of artistic space. It allows them to tackle many foundational acting tasks.
But the themes raised by the Greeks are not only — or even primarily — for beginners! I dream of actors who don’t see themselves as columns or emotional amplifiers, merely transmitting sound from the flash drives of memory, but as creators — those who guide others toward meaning. That takes time — time to ripen. And in truth, there is great joy in working with texts that one must grow into — and grow within. Ancient tragedies are exactly that kind of material.
First of all, the prevailing stereotype that antiquity is archaic, sealed off, and inaccessible made our work more difficult. We had to find reasons to believe in the text. What helped was our shared agreement on the theme — that the theme of captivity speaks to each of us personally.
Secondly, each actor had room for genuine artistic expression through powerful monologues, and not a single role felt secondary. This is where the generosity of Euripides’ dramaturgical genius truly revealed itself.
Thirdly, the integration of Ukrainian songs into the foundation of the chorus played a vital role.
I’m deeply grateful to the actors for their dedication. They all have jobs, yet we still managed to find time for deep, collective work. It’s worth mentioning that two actresses left after the first semester — those were our losses. They weren’t able to discover the potential of the material — the possibility for self-realization and transformation.
And returning to the mission of theatre — to transformation, or catharsis, through the power of the Holy Spirit (and it’s important to say: not the spirit of Euripides!) — it felt symbolic that the premiere of The Trojan Women took place on the Feast of Pentecost, the Descent of the Holy Spirit.
— So, when and where can audiences see the next performance? And is there any chance the production will travel internationally?
As for international plans: yes, there is a real possibility. During my recent trip to the UK I had several encouraging conversations about presenting The Trojan Women there. It may even involve working with local actors if our own cast cannot travel. Of course, there are logistical challenges — visas, funding — but we’re applying for grants and I believe it will come together. In other words, the Trojan women may indeed soon sing not only in Ukraine, but also abroad.
Interview by Eduard Berdnyk
