REVIEW: DONBAS by Olga Braga at Theatre503 until 28 February
‘The hell of war’ ★★★★
War isn’t just hell. It’s pointless, meaningless hell. Evil runs rampant, and good doesn’t triumph. There are no heroes and no villains. It offers nothing but misery heaped on misery. The triumph of London-based Ukrainian playwright Olga Braga’s Donbas is that it doesn’t take the easy route of simply lionising heroic little Ukraine. Instead it shows us the heartbreaking squalor of living in the midst of a war.
Braga’s compassion and understanding extends, not just to the young Ukrainian, newly released from a Russian prison, who wants to go and fight for his country; but also to his father, who has no patience for such quixotic ideas, lives in the world as it is with his home region of Donbas under Russian control, works for the Russians, scrapes together enough to feed his family, has obtained a Russian passport, and is determined to see his son do the same. Her compassion extends, not just to the 15-year-old girl whose beloved mother is gunned down for being on the street after curfew, but also to the wretched Russian soldier who shot her.
Sashko’s father’s arguments against going to fight for his country are presented cogently and forcefully. Does Sashko think he is defending his nation? But he has a Russian grandmother. Just what is his nation? What is your nation, or mine? We are all mongrels. This is a very fine play because it avoids easy answers and simplistic narratives, and it shows us human beings, with all their failings and weaknesses, in a war zone.
It’s a play which really demands a bigger space and more facilities than it can have in the tiny Theatre503, and I hope in time it gets them, but meanwhile it’s brought to the 503 stage with economy and gritty realism by director Anthony Simpson-Pike, and held together by a brilliant central performance from Jack Bandeira as Sashko. (Bandeira doubles as a Russian soldier, such are the exigencies of pub theatre.) The rest of the cast are excellent too; there is not a weak performance.
It’s not perfect. Sometimes Braga goes off piste for a little too long and forgets she is telling a story. I wasn’t convinced by the dream sequences, which required various members of the cast to dress up as Cossacks and stand around looking silently meaningful. Nonetheless, this play establishes Braga as probably the best writer Ukraine has given the English language since the great, and now sadly late, Marina Lewycka. It’s beautifully written, with character emerging from dialogue, as it should. “He died a good death” says Sashko of a friend killed fighting the Russians. “No, he just died” says his father.
Read our INTERVIEW with director Anthony Simpson-Pike HERE
DONBAS by Olga Braga at Theatre503 5 - 28 February 2026
Artistic Team
Writer Olga Braga
Director Anthony Simpson-Pike
Designer Niall McKeever
Lighting Designer Christopher Nairne
Sound Designer Xana
Movement Director Nevena Stojkov
Cast
Jack Bandeira
Ksenia Devriendt
Liz Kettle
Philippe Spall
Sasha Syzonenko
Steve Watts
Photography: Helen Murray
