From late May to June 28, in London’s Arcola Theatre, audiences have the opportunity to see the documentary play “The Reckoning”, created by the British company Dash Artsand the Public Interest Journalism Lab. British director Josephine Burton and Ukrainian playwright Anastasiia Kosodii developed the production based on real testimonies of survivors of Russian war crimes.

Witness accounts from Stoyanka, Blystavytsia, Snihurivka, and Kramatorsk were collected as part of The Reckoning Project. At the end of 2022, one of the project’s co-founders, researcher Peter Pomerantsev, invited Josephine Burton to work with the archive of recorded testimonies. In addition to legal accountability, he wanted the guilty Russians to also face justice in the court of public opinion. Burton agreed.

She realized that for such a production, she needed a Ukrainian playwright, and she invited Anastasiia Kosodii to collaborate. Together, they read through dozens of testimonies to find thematic connections between the stories. Some of the testimonies resonated more personally with the authors. For Anastasiia, who is originally from the Zaporizhzhia region, the stories from her native area were especially powerful. For Josephine, it was the story of a mother from the Kyiv region, whose son was killed by Russian soldiers while trying to escape occupation.

After carefully reviewing the testimonies and speaking with people involved in The Reckoning Project, the artists concluded that a journalist would be the narrative element that ties the survivors’ stories together. The story of a security guard from Stoyanka became the central one.

Journalist Nataliya Gumenyuk speaks with JosephineBurton about how the director worked with testimonies of war crimes, why she chose not to show the actors photos of real people, the use of the Ukrainian language in the play, a salad of radishes and tomatoes, and what can protect a documentary production from turning into bad theatre.

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