VANYA IS ALIVE

Omnibus Theatre

★★★★

“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.

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