Review: PUSSYCAT IN MEMORY OF DARKNESS, Finborough Theatre

Photo credit: Charles Flint

After receiving rave reviews in August last year and a ground-breaking transfer to Kyiv in December, the OffWestEnd Award-nominated Pussycat in Memory of Darkness returns to the Finborough Theatre this spring. As war still rages in Ukraine, this new play from Neda Nezhdana (translated from Ukrainian by John Farndon) takes on renewed power and poignancy after its return from the front line.

Pussycat opens on a nameless woman (Kristin Milward) selling a box of kittens on the street in the Donbas region of Ukraine in 2014. The woman’s gentle salesmanship fractures as she begins to tell the story of how she came to be on this street with no paper work, no home, no family and only a box of kittens to whom she cannot offer a home.

The Finborough Theatre and the entire production team deserve a standing ovation for championing Ukrainian voices in the midst of the ongoing war. Nezhdana’s play tracks the history of the conflict that ignited in 2014 back to student uprisings in the 1990s, weaving a web of misinformation and political subterfuge. Nazhdana roots the growing climate of violence and political division in domestic relationships and notably in the nameless woman’s relationship with her home and her animals, which are all that remain after the rest of her family flees the Donbas. Just like in any horror movie or intense drama, you know it’s going to be all the more devastating when there’s dogs and cats involved.

Kristin Milward is a force of nature as she narrates one woman’s experience of the tragic recent history of Ukraine - full of righteous rage and utter despair all at once. Milward’s physicality is astounding, at one moment beating her chest and shaking her fists at the air, and the next so fragile and frightened, you worry she might shatter. Milward is an incredibly flexible actor and under Polly Creed’s confident direction guides us through every stage of grief as a woman who has lost everything, including her country and identity.

Ola Klos’ stark, ashy white set provides an elegant backdrop to Milward’s monologue – allowing the vivid projections of real photographs of the devastation in Kyiv and the colours of the Ukrainian flag to stand out defiantly. The stage is cannily divided between the cosy, homely interior and a barricade of pallets, crates and sacks, between which the nameless woman is tossed, buffeted by political stirrings and the whim of a cruel militia. Polly Creed’s clean, composed direction, and the punctuation of Jonathan Chan’s lighting design guide the audience through the rolling changes of scenery, as well as the hopping between memory and present day.

Pussycat in Memory of Darkness demands packed audiences every night of the run – a play that remains an urgent piece of writing and a shattering production that needs to be seen.

**** Four stars

Reviewed by: Livvy Perrett

Pussycat in Memory of Darkness plays at the Finborough Theatre until 22 April, with further information here.