Over the last couple of weeks a number of ex-students have been rehearsing in the Judith E Wilson Drama Studio for a production of Maklena, a play that will have its English language premiere next week at the Cambridge Junction.
Night Train Theatre Company presents Maklena, a timely and trenchant Ukrainian classic, re-imagined with puppetry, music and physical theatre. Maklena was originally supported by Cambridge University Amateur Dramatics Club, and the company is made up of Cambridge graduates moving into the professional theatre world.
For thirteen-year-old Maklena, the Soviet Union is the best fairy tale yet. Her family faces dire poverty in 1930s Poland and Maklena dreams of a better life across the border in the USSR. Communist propaganda and magical geese blur in her imagination, and she longs to join the revolutionaries. Her landlord, Zbrozhek, has a different ambition: to buy the local factory and see his name in golden letters. But when the banks crash, the economic crisis threatens to crush both of these dreams. Maklena and Zbrozhek retreat further into their fantasies, pushing their communist and capitalist ideologies to the extreme.
6TH – 7TH JULY Cambridge Junction, as part of Hotbed Theatre Festival
14TH JULY The Undercroft, Peterborough
17TH – 21ST JULY Camden People’s Theatre, London
Tickets and more information: www.nighttraintheatrecompany.com | @nighttraintc
This production is supported using public funding from Arts Council England