"Odyssey ~ Meotida"

A joint project of the Ivan Franko National Academic Drama Theater and the 1st Corps of the NSU "Azov"

"Odyssey ~ Meotida" is our contemporary story of returning home.

Time distances us from the sound of the Azov Sea waves, from the silhouettes of the Donbas spoil tips, from the scent of Crimean lavender. The longer the war continues, the harder it is to keep believing in the return. But every day and every night, we keep watch.

Homer's foundational European myth becomes in the play a measure of the modern journey of Ukrainians: toward their own name, toward undistorted memory of their country and themselves, and ultimately — toward their home.

Our path — the one already traveled and the one ahead — is a path in war. Homer's Odysseus was returning. We are returning [what is ours].

The central conflict of the play is the confrontation with death. Death in our story is broader than murder. It comes as oblivion, as despair, as the habit of humiliation, as consent to remain nobody.

The action of the play takes place in two dimensions: the world of Penelope's struggle and waiting and the heroic world of Odysseus, as well as in two temporal realities — the ancient world and the present. The two worlds meet in a third dimension — the space of faith, unconditional love, and memory.

"Meotida" is the ancient Greek name for the Azov Sea. In the play, it appears as the embodiment of the long journey home, from where everything once began and toward which we will hold our course. Through time, through the storm, at the call of the sea.