The Reckoning – Arcola, London

Writers: Anastasiia Kosodii and Josephine Burton

Director: Josephine Burton

When Russia occupied the Ukrainian area of Donechchyna in the current war, The Reckoning Project started collecting testimonies from the people forced to evacuate. This new play at the Arcola dramatises some of these survivor stories to the sweet smell of cucumber and dill.

The main narrative is that of a man from Stoyanka who is surprised to survive the attacks of the marauding Russian soldiers when they descend on his village. They tie him up in the barn with “three knots”, one rope around his hands, one around a single leg and the third around his neck. For some inexplicable reason, they don’t kill him, but instead give him a secret code that should save his life if other Russian soldiers arrive. They also give him a handful of roubles.

He, reluctantly at first, tells his story to a journalist who has been tasked to hear and write down these witness accounts of the Russian invasion. She also has a story to tell of her own escape from the occupying forces. They talk while he prepares a simple but fragrant Ukrainian salad of radish, spring onion, tomato, cucumber and dill. The smell, easily caught in the small studio space, evokes long summer days and freedom.

After the soldiers have left, the man from Stoyanka (Tom Godwin) discovers that his village is deserted. No one is around. He buries the bodies of people shot in their cars by the Russians. He talks calmly, even objectively, about his experience, as that is perhaps the only way he can provide the journalist with the details that she requires.

Two other actors, who stand ominously in black, help to create fragments of the testimony he delivers, and some brilliant, sharp stagecraft with a simple trestle table bring parts of his account to life. Never has the muffled sound of a door falling onto a carpet carried so much weight.

There are other testimonies too, but these are not staged so successfully. They involve Simeon Kyslyi and Olga Safronova talking in Ukrainian with the journalist (Marianne Oldman) rapidly translating their words into English. As they speak at the same time, it’s difficult to follow the narrative, but these scenes still carry the urgency of people desperate to tell their experiences to someone, and hopefully, to the world.

Although how many tragedies can you listen to without caving into despair? The journalist is burdened with these stories and confesses that she may have to give up the assignment. In reality, the Reckoning Project collected over 600 testimonies of people caught up in the war. The journalist’s predicament is like one covered in Simon Stephens’ The Trial of Ubi, where one translator at an International Crime Tribunal collapses from hearing endless stories of war crimes.

But there is hope at the end of The Reckoning, and it comes through simple rituals like communal eating or walking the dog. Normality could be the greatest healer.

Runs until 28 June 2025