SHOWCASE Helsinki 98
Theatre in Times of War
Friday, 4 December
7:00 PM
Svetlana Alexievich: The Last of the Soviets
Based on the documentary novel by Nobel Prize–winning author Svetlana Alexievich, the production explores the collapse of the Soviet Union and the disintegration of the Soviet worldview through the story of one individual.
The production has played 73 sold-out performances. It will also be presented at Vaba Lava in Tallinn on 6 October 2026.
Between 2023 and 2025, we produced an Alexievich trilogy - The Last of the Soviets, Zinky Boys, and Voices from Chernobyl. Altogether, the productions have had 128 performances, 116 of which were sold out.
Saturday, 5 December
1:00 PM
Svetlana Petriychuk: Finist, the Brave Falcon — Staged Reading
In 2021, director Zhenya Berkovich and playwright Svetlana Petriychuk created the independent theatre production Finist, the Brave Falcon in Moscow. Based on court records, the play tells the stories of lonely women who meet Islamist fighters online, fall in love with them and travel to Syria.
The production received widespread recognition within the Russian theatre community, and Petriychuk was awarded the Golden Mask for the play—Russia’s most prestigious theatre prize before the country’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
In 2023, Berkovich and Petriychuk were arrested and charged with “justifying terrorism”. In 2024, they were each sentenced to six years in prison. Their conviction is widely regarded as politically motivated and as a warning to the entire Russian theatre community. Berkovich was known for her anti-war stance, and her pacifist poems circulated widely in Russia.
The sentencing of Berkovich and Petriychuk is the first widely known case since the Soviet era—probably since the Stalinist period—in which theatre-makers have received lengthy prison sentences because of the content of their work.
The staged reading will be followed by a discussion, provisionally moderated by playwright Mikhail Durnenkov.
4:00 PM
Varlam Shalamov: Kolyma Stories
Kolyma Stories is one of the most significant works of twentieth-century Gulag literature. Varlam Shalamov spent almost two decades in Soviet prisons and forced-labour camps, most of them in Kolyma in north-eastern Siberia, where temperatures could fall below –50°C.
Shalamov compared Kolyma’s historical significance to that of Hiroshima and Auschwitz.
7:00 PM
Iryna Serebriakova: 158 Ways to Keep Warm
In January and February 2026, Russian attacks on Kyiv’s energy and heating infrastructure left millions of residents without electricity or heat while outdoor temperatures fell as low as –20°C. Winter and cold were systematically turned into weapons of war.
158 Ways to Keep Warm is a documentary performance about people forced to find ever new ways of surviving in their homes as indoor temperatures fall to around 10°C. How do you warm your home, your own body and another person in a city where even warmth has become a target of war?
The world premiere will take place on 5 December 2026.¨
10:00 PM
The Grammar of Silence
A documentary theatre production about the lives of Russia’s queer community amid war, enforced silence and escalating persecution. The production draws on interviews conducted in Russia and on queer people’s experiences of life in the country during the 2010s and 2020s.
The production is directed by Kazakh-Russian puppetry director Roman Boklanov, who was forced into exile from Russia to Germany in 2022. It combines documentary material with acting, puppetry, objects and shadow theatre.
The world premiere will take place on 29 September 2026.
