Alina

by Lianna Makuch

An exhilarating, breathless journey toward and away from war.

Alina is a physical theatre experience driven by an evocative drum-and-bass, EDM score. It is a coming of age story set against the backdrop of war. The play is inspired by the true experiences of a 19-year-old volunteer Ukrainian combat medic on the front line of one of the deadliest battles of the war in Eastern Ukraine in 2015.

Alina leaves everything behind to go to the frontline and fight for a future she believes in. Fueled by coffee, energy drinks, and cigarettes, her journey begins as an idealistic, adrenaline-charged adventure. But things abruptly take a turn. It is when she returns home to the shock of peaceful civilian life that she realizes her struggle does not end on the frontlines.

“The true strength of the production is in its expert treatment of the story. The script is clear and well-paced...”

— Liane Faulder, Edmonton Journal

First produced by Pyretic Productions in association with Punctuate! Theatre, May 24 - June 5, 2022

Genre: Drama

Acts: 1

Run time: 90 minutes

Female roles: 2

Copyscript available on the Theatre Alberta Online Catalogue

Pictured: Christina Nguyen. Photo by Alexis McKeown

DEVELOPMENT

Alina is inspired by the true experiences of Ukrainian volunteer combat medic Alina Viatkina and her service in Eastern Ukraine in 2015. Being a 19-year-old young woman, Alina was unable to join either the official military or volunteer battalions. In spite of this, she posed as a journalist and independently made her way to the war zone.

Additional interviews were also conducted with other female veterans of the ongoing war. Interviews and research were conducted by Lianna Makuch and took place as part of an artistic residency at the IZOLYATSIA Cultural Platform in Kyiv, Ukraine in February 2020.

Image from the February 2020 residency at Izolyatsia with Alina Viatkina and Lianna Makuch.

Development research reel. Lianna Makuch Artist-in-Residence at IZOLYATSIA in Kyiv. Interview with Alina Viatkina.

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“If your actions might not make a difference, should you bother? In this play, the answer is not entirely clear, which is the beauty of Alina. What could easily have become a preachy 90-minute diatribe is instead a nuanced look by Ukrainian Canadian playwright Lianna Makuch at the choices we make… But the true strength of the production is in its expert treatment of the story. The script is clear and well-paced, and lead actor Christina Nguyen tells the difficult story with no histrionics and some amount of much-needed humour.”

— Liane Faulder, Edmonton Journal

Edmonton Journal Review

Edmonton Journal Preview

“Trains, they’re like time portals,” says the title character of Alina, who steps into one at the outset. On a train you leave one world and you arrive in another.

The question the drives the gripping new play by Ukrainian-Canadian playwright Lianna Makuch, premiering in Patrick Lundeen’s veritable barrage of a production, is whether you can ever come back… It’s a bone-rattling first-person solo evocation of the horrifying multi-sense assault of war, and the nightmare strangeness of PTSD.