Modern Ukrainian Drama in Dublin
About this Event
On 11 September, CU Theater presents performative readings of two contemporary Ukrainian plays at the Graduates Memorial Building (the GMB), Trinity College Dublin. Both texts will be read in English.
The programme pairs Victoria’s Little Secrets by Alina Sarnatska with The Woman with the Fridge by Marta Shyiko.
Victoria’s Little Secrets (2026) — a dark comedy about a Ukrainian woman who runs a taxidermy YouTube channel, arranging bones with the unhurried care of a florist.
Alina Sarnatska is a writer, playwright, war veteran, a member of PEN Ukraine, and PhD in Social Work whose work explores cultural resilience and resistance to disinformation during wartime, and has been staged in Ukraine, Sweden, Germany, the USA and Poland.
The Woman with the Fridge is a funny and clever story about love and memory — and a play about relationships in which we don’t rid ourselves of our burdens but hide inside them, hand them to other people, and use them as a reason to do nothing. At its centre is a woman who has lost herself in what society expects of her, and beside her a man who holds tightly to his mother.
Marta Shyiko is a Ukrainian journalist, Slavic philologist and writer. She studied at the School of Journalism and Communications at the Ukrainian Catholic University. She is a finalist of the Propysy playwriting festival. Her husband was killed in the war.
The readings are directed by Elina Herasymchuk, a Ukrainian theatre director and filmmaker based in Dublin. She is the founder of CU Theater, Ireland’s first Ukrainian theatre company, known for bilingual, immersive productions and community-centred cultural events. Her work returns to memory, displacement and collective resilience, and she also makes documentary and experimental film. She is a recent Film graduate at Trinity College Dublin and works across Ireland’s artistic and humanitarian sectors.
All proceeds and donations from the evening go to the Leleka Foundation, which delivers tactical medical supplies to frontline combat medics in Ukraine.
11 September, 18:15, Graduates Memorial Building, Trinity College Dublin. Tickets €10.
Where is it happening?
Event Location & Nearby Stays:
EUR 11.70
