Fire Embers Ash – Barons Court Theatre, London

Writer Hailey Mashburn

Director: Stephen Smith

Fire Embers Ash is a historical drama about the ‘night witches’, a squadron of women pilots who ran bombing missions for the Soviet Union during World War II.

The audience walks in to see a spotlit model of a plane, its shadow projecting large on the wall. Great use is made of this model, with the cast flying it around the stage, shining lights to represent different atmospheric conditions and a strobe showing rapid machine gun fire. At one point, the model is twirled in front of a projection, letting the audience see it crash in a ball of flame. It really highlights how alone the women were, having this tiny model flying in the blankness of the stage.

The women themselves are given the cast-offs of the male flight squadrons. The actors wear oversized male uniforms which flop over their hands and have to be pulled in tight by belts and braces. They also have to make to with janky old wooden planes, which make them harder to spot and lead them into adopting daring tactics, like cutting off the engines and gliding before dropping their payload. Mashburn’s script highlights the quietness and freedom of that moment, just before the chaos of the bombs exploding.

Fire Embers Ash introduces the audience to five of the women who were part of the squadron. Henriette Laursen plays Marina Roskova, the woman who started the squadron by badgering Stalin into allowing it. She’s an inspiring leader, who has a calm way of connecting with her subordinates. Maya Waghorn plays the first female air-ace, Lydia Litvyak, a showy, confident woman who takes the fur out of her boots to spice up her uniform.

Maria Masonou is the new girl, Yevgeniya Rudneva, who appears to suffer from nerves more than the other women. In civilian life, she is a scientist who studied stars, and her speech about how her childhood fascination with them led to her flying planes is a highlight of the piece. Stephanie Van Driesen plays Nadezhda Popova, the second in command, who seems stuffier and more tightly wound than her commander but who carries the memory of all the women fallen. The everywoman of the group is Natalya Meklin, played by Yvonne Maxwell, who opens and closes the piece as narrator.

The script does a very good job of turning these real people into types of characters and then playing them off each other, with everyone having a different role in the dynamic. Mashburn gives each woman a speech or moment which reveals something of their inner self, their motivation to fly or their fears of the constraints of the world after the war. It sometimes seems a little too quick, with moments of heroism and pathos running on each other’s heels and dramatic moments, though staged well, not having much time to linger until the next moment. However, it’s no bad thing to walk out out of a play and wish it were longer.

Fire Embers Ash is a well-staged, well-written and well-acted production about a fascinating piece of lesser-known history. It’s definitely worth watching.

Runs until 27 January 2024