★★★★

“sixty minutes of haunting storytelling that passes by in a moment, and it’s well worth your time”

On a bare stage in the Omnibus Theatre just off Clapham Common’s North Side, a Ukrainian-born actor named Nikolay Mulakov, part of an independent company called L’Oeil Epissé Sur Ame Pure based in France, walks through the audience. He’s here to perform Vanya Is Alive by a Russian playwright named Natalia Lizorkina, and we, the audience, are here to bear witness.

It is a seemingly simple story about a mother waiting for her soldier son to come home. In playwright Lizorkina’s talented hands, it becomes something much more complex. It becomes an act of resistance to the whole state machinery of war. And Vanya Is Alive may have begun as an act of resistance to Russia’s war on Ukraine in 2022, but it’s becoming more relevant every day in 2025. In the show, a mother, Alya, is declaring war on the state that sent her son away. And the way that she does it is revolutionary. She declares war by talking about happiness, and peace, and being well nourished. It becomes clear that her words describe anything but. She plays videos and memes her son sends from the front line. She listens to forbidden podcasts, and reads forbidden texts. Her final act of resistance before being arrested is to stand in the town centre with the family icon as a mute protest against her son’s pointless sacrifice. “Vanya is alive” she insists, even while it is perfectly clear that he is not.

The beginning of the show is deceptively nonchalant, as actor Nikolay Mulakov walks on stage to ask us how we are, and whether we speak Russian. He slides into Vanya Is Alive casually reciting a list of the characters who are going to appear in the story. The audience barely notices that we have already begun to walk, metaphorically speaking, by Alya’s side. Because there is nothing else to focus on but Mulakov telling Alya’s story, playwright Lizorkina’s words take on great power, despite the seeming simplicity of the language. But there’s always a surprise in Lizorkina’s choice of words, so we pay close attention. (I’m assuming the English translation is a faithful reflection of the original.) Vanya Is Alive is not so much a drama, as a powerful story told dramatically. Director Ivanka Polchenko is wise to present Natalia Lizorkina’s script in such a stripped down manner. It is reflected in the deliberate choice of a “set concept”, rather than a set, by Polchenko and her designer Ksenia Peretrukhina. Scene changes are indicated by lighting changes (designer Eli Marsh).

Vanya Is Alive is sixty minutes of haunting storytelling that passes by in a moment, and it’s well worth your time. There’s something universal about this drama, whether one is Russian, Ukrainian, or anyone trying to describe the sadness of war when your government will only permit you to speak of happiness and peace. Catch it while you can. It’s becoming more relevant every day.

THE ICE AT THE END OF THE WORLD at the Omnibus Theatre

★★★★

“Madelaine Moore’s direction is assured, moving with suave authority”

The Ice at the End of the World is chilling in the best way possible. Seldom in the theatre have I needed to squeeze someone’s hand quite so frequently. The lady next to me was very understanding. Luckily, I’d brought her with me. For seventy five minutes, we are aboard a tall ship, and taken on its eerie and highly unsettling excursion into the Arctic Circle.

We follow a small group of artists, who have been selected to undertake this really quite dangerous and not-just-for-giggles journey for the sake of their art. Their inspiration is ‘life at the end of the world’ (although this detail is not entirely clear). But the further north they go, the more disturbed things become. By the end of the piece, it is assuredly a cosmic horror, which harnesses both alien terror and a mythological morality tale concerning climate change and the arrogance of the human race.

The first thing that should be complimented is the superb plethora of non-verbal material here. Lighting (Megan Lucas) and Sound Design (Russell Ditchfield) work in compelling symbiosis. The axiom of this show is ‘we do not take the journey; the journey takes us.’ Thus, the actors weave between dialogue and protean physical theatre, cultivating the eerie unreality of life aboard a ship – maddeningly claustrophobic within the vast entrapment of the sea. Silhouettes, voiceovers, dance, and more, meld seamlessly, conjuring the other-worldly enchantments of the journey north.

Madelaine Moore’s direction is assured, moving with suave authority, and allowing its non-dialogic elements to taunt and threaten. They express the ineffable and erotic temptations of nature, especially as the ice melts, revealing the untamed potential of the uncivilised Earth, which demands something in return for the damage we have unthinkingly wreaked upon her.

The cast is brilliant as the four-person crew of eccentrics. Laura (Judith Amsenga), who functions as Nature’s tour guide of the Arctic Circle, is commanding and unhinged in terrifyingly equal measure. Eleanor Dillon-Reams is captivating as Alys, the sort-of protagonist, and a translator of Finnish poetry – of course, she is herself, a former, failed poet. Katy Schutte (who is also the writer, deserving of its own commendation) and Gian Carlo Ferrini are also excellent, and their characters complement the piece throughout.

This piece of theatre – I’m loath to call it but a play – is, at its core, a theatrical argument between Mother Nature and the human race: It is a battle of ego. Alongside, there is a recurring conceit devolving the nature and origin of genius. Here, genius manifests as an attendant demon that threatens to possess its human vessel completely. This idea looms throughout, posing some wonderful philosophical knots for the journey home.

A word used in the piece is ‘unsettling’: it is the perfect word with which to consider this play. We are unsettled constantly: by the movement of the ship, and by the evasive and disturbing chain of events.

If I had any criticisms, it would be that a discussion of queerness feels a little shoehorned in and lacking in sufficient development. I’d also say that some of the more abstract physical theatre was perhaps introduced too early to deliver its full effect. But I am nit-picking.

The Ice at the End of the World is endlessly resourceful. Its lens is panpsychist, probing the boundaries of consciousness and power, and flirting with the liminal spaces between Human and Nature, and where Art disrupts these fabrics. It is also a warning: a warning that the planet will avenge its destruction at the hands of human beings; a warning that the permanence of the Earth will forever haunt the exploits of mere mortals, no matter what their contributions. There’s also some really cool stuff with ice bears. I could not recommend this show enough.

Tag Archives: Omnibus Theatre

VANYA IS ALIVE

★★★★

Omnibus Theatre

VANYA IS ALIVE

Omnibus Theatre

★★★★

“sixty minutes of haunting storytelling that passes by in a moment, and it’s well worth your time”

VANYA IS ALIVE

Omnibus Theatre

Reviewed on 4th February 2025

by Dominica Plummer

Photography by Sergey Novikov

Previously reviewed at this venue:

THE ICE AT THE END OF THE WORLD | ★★★★ | September 2024

MY LIFE AS A COWBOY | ★★★ | August 2024

HASBIAN | ★★★★ | June 2024

COMPOSITOR E | ★★★ | September 2023

VANYA IS ALIVE

VANYA IS ALIVE

VANYA IS ALIVE

THE ICE AT THE END OF THE WORLD

★★★★

Omnibus Theatre

THE ICE AT THE END OF THE WORLD at the Omnibus Theatre

★★★★

“Madelaine Moore’s direction is assured, moving with suave authority”