By Ernest Kearney — Ghost Land opens with the kindly face of a gigantic god staring down upon us, a god that we soon see is as sickly and as wounded as we all are.
From the play by Andriy Bondarenko, translated by John Freedman and Vladyslav Hetmanenko Ghost Land is an episodic piece examining the cost of the Ukrainian war on those suffering from its horror and on those who are inflicting those horrors. It is reminiscent of Private Life of the Master Race by Bertolt Brecht and somewhat Harold Pinter’s One for the Road.
We are subjected to the Doctor/God (Andy Kallok) trying to heal the war wounded, a torturer (Gifford Irvine) and the tortured (Angela Beyer) exchanging roles, a soldier (David E. Frank) trapped in a personal prism of reflecting images of his death and other horrors of war and the causalities it makes of us all.
Director Frédérique Michel manages to ease her audience over a difficult script while simultaneously enhancing or sharpening a sense of loss or horror with her well-chosen projection of images ranging from a serene snow-bound field to the alien tripods of H.G. Wells attacking Martians devastating the landscape.
Ghost Land is a stunning production of a gut-wrenching subject.
****
“Ghost Land”
A new play about the war in Ukraine
By Andriy Bondarenko
Translated by John Freedman
with Vladyslav Hetmanenko
Directed by Frédérique Michel
Produced by Charles A. Duncombe
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Closes: Sunday, October 15, 2023
Tickets General Admission $30; Students/Seniors w/ID $25
Sundays, “Pay-What-You-Can” at the door
(or full price for advance reservations)
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Box Office/Information:
(310) 453-9939
www.citygarage.org
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Performance Address:
City Garage
2525 Michigan Ave. Building T1
Santa Monica, Ca. 90404
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