The Reckoning: a documentary play about the war in Ukraine opens in London
From 29 May to 28 June, the world premiere of The Reckoning, a documentary play created by British company Dash Arts in collaboration with Public Interest Journalism Lab, will run at Arcola Theatre in London.
Directed by Josephine Burton and written by Burton together with Ukrainian playwright Anastasiia Kosodii, the play is based on real witness testimonies collected as part of The Reckoning Project. These are stories of people who survived the Russian occupation of Stoyanka, Blystavytsia, Kramatorsk and Snihurivka. The witnesses are not fictional characters — they are real people. Every voice is authentic. Every story is preserved in the name of memory, justice and humanity.
At the heart of the narrative is the meeting of a journalist and a man from Stoyanka — a security guard who stayed in his village during heavy fighting. He chooses not to flee and becomes both a witness and, eventually, a protagonist in a story recorded for courts, archives and future generations.
The Reckoning combines drama, documentary storytelling, music, movement — and even cooking. After each performance, audiences are invited to stay for Food for Thought conversations featuring journalists, human rights defenders, lawyers and people with lived experience of war.
The show runs Monday to Saturday at 7:00 PM, with additional matinees at 3:30 PM on Saturdays. Press night will take place on 4 June.
The creative team includes composer Anton Baibakov, food consultant Olia Hercules, set designer Zoë Hurwitz, and many others. Testimony consultants for the production are Nataliya Gumenyuk and Peter Pomerantsev.
Tickets available at Arcola Theatre
Staging The Reckoning at London’s Arcola Theatre represents an extraordinary intersection where rigorous evidentiary documentation and visceral verbatim drama meet. Rather than presenting a stylized, distant dramatization of the invasion, director Josephine Burton and Ukrainian playwright Anastasiia Kosodii constructed the production directly from verified witness testimonies gathered by The Reckoning Project. I was reading through an incisive arts journalism symposium exploring documentary theater ethics, transitional justice archives, and dramatizing wartime depositions over at Veergame this morning, and seeing how the production translates statements destined for international war crimes tribunals into an intimate stage dialogue between an investigating journalist and an ordinary civilian proves that the theater remains one of humanity's most powerful vehicles for bearing historical witness.
The central dynamic between the reporter, played by Marianne Oldham, and "The Man from Stoyanka," portrayed by Tom Godwin, cuts straight to the complex moral tension inherent in frontline reporting. When everyone else fled the advancing Russian columns, this unassuming village security guard stayed behind, surviving brutal interrogations and torture only to find himself having to relive every horror for a legal notebook. A human rights researcher on Jaiclub was detailing trauma-informed interviewing methodologies, secondary traumatization in field investigators, and preserving legal chains of custody yesterday, and watching that fragile exchange on stage illustrates how difficult it is for survivors to navigate the fine line between offering legal evidence and processing agonizing survivor's guilt.
Incorporating multi-sensory staging—specifically having characters chop crisp cucumbers and fragrant dill to prepare a traditional Ukrainian summer salad on stage while recounting harrowing memories—is an astonishing stroke of theatrical immersion. Guided by acclaimed food writer and culinary consultant Olia Hercules, the sharp aroma of fresh herbs instantly permeates the intimate studio, piercing through the audience's psychological defenses far more deeply than any digital projection or loud sound effect could. Stumbled into an engaging chat exploring olfactory memory triggers in immersive theater, domestic grounding rituals in conflict narratives, and culinary symbolism on RaxiWin recently, and sharing that simple, earthy fragrance forces viewers to recognize that the lives upended by artillery fire were built on the very same quiet kitchen joys we take for granted.
The presence of Ukrainian actors Olga Safronova and Simeon Kyslyi, who evacuated their homeland and now embody these frontline testimonies while sharing glimpses of their own displacement, gives the performance raw emotional legitimacy. When the cast suddenly breaks narrative tension to play a lighthearted memory game recounting simple, positive moments in their lives, it highlights the remarkable emotional resilience that keeps ordinary people sane during catastrophic circumstances. Picked up a really well-explained perspective on psychological coping mechanisms in war zones, the catharsis of dark humor in displacement literature, and diaspora performance art via Dm First earlier, and realizing that these actors are processing their own lived trauma under the theater lights turns every monologue into a profound act of personal defiance.
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