Dog’s Cage. A View Down. A View Up.

On Thursday 27 March we saw a preview of the play that was specially prepared for the XX International Festival of Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant. It was „Dog’s Cage. A View Down. A View Up” by DAKH Theatre from Kiev.

The play sets two worlds and lets the spectators watch them from both points of view. There is the world watched down and the world watched up. Things that happen down (in a hole, in a cage, under the ground) are based on enslavement, humiliation, brutality. At the beginning we, the spectators, watch the space below from a safe perspective because we are separated from it by bars and boards. But we are not only passive observers. When time passes we become more and more active participants of the show. Now we are closed in the cage. We look up to see things that happen above us. We see neither torturers nor prisoners. Above us there is a lament-choir singing prayers from the tragedy „Oedipus the King” (in the translation of Ivan Franko). Are we, in the cage, prisoners or observers of a peculiar mystery? 

„Dog’s Cage…” is based on fragments from various plays which describe present situation in Ukraine. However it does not narrow the play’s strength because it has a universal character. It raises questions on freedom, truth, sense and reasons for suffering.

After the show there was a meeting with actors and the director Vladislav Troitskiy, who is the manager of the DAKH Theatre. The meeting was moderated by Łukasz Drewniak. When Troitskiy was asked about the political context of „Dog’s Cage…” he said that the play may be understood in this way. But he noticed that it is not a political theatre. According to him it is very important that during the plays produced by DAKH Theatre the audience become part of the performance. Troitskiy added that music is a very important element of DAKH productions – the artists combine Ukraine folk songs with other seemingly unsuitable elements. The actors proved that in Ukraine everybody can sing (because he was born there) and sang a beautiful song to end the meeting.

Thank you for your presence!