Actors who sheltered in Ukraine’s Mariupol theatre bring story of bombing to the stage
The Donetsk theatre in the city of Mariupol was supposed to be a place of safety for hundreds of civilians sheltering during the first few weeks of Russia’s invasion in Ukraine. A sign bearing the word “children” was marked on the ground outside, visible from the air.
On 16 March 2022, the building was bombed. Authorities at the time said about 300 people had died, although some estimates were higher.
The stories of survivors are now being recounted by actors who were among those sheltering in the theatre at the time. Mariupol Drama, a play which opens in the UK this week, features real video footage captured on their phones, and personal items saved from the rubble.
A warning that children were sheltering inside the theatre was visible from the skies. Pic: Maxar Technologies
Olena Bila and her partner Ihor Kytrysh, who have acted at the theatre since 2003, managed to escape the devastation with their son, Matvii.
“This is a story with a lot of memories from a previous life,” Olena tells Sky News from Ukraine, speaking through a translator. “We worked and lived in Mariupol and did what we loved. In a few days, we lost everything.”
The family also lost their home. Olena says she hopes the play shows that material possessions are not what’s important.
“We lost the material side of our lives. We want to show for everybody that all items around you, the material side of your life, doesn’t matter… it’s your mind, it’s your soul, it’s your heart [that does].”
The theatre was bombed in March 2022
The couple also hope the production will remind people, almost three years on from the start of Russia’s invasion, that the war is still ongoing.
“We are still at war,” Olena says. “It’s our stories, real stories. Not Hollywood fiction, but a story of real people in Ukraine.
“It’s very hard to see that this war is still continuing. We still have no room for our plans for the future.”
After the start of Russia’s invasion in February 2022, the theatre, in the city’s Tsentralnyi district, became a hub for the distribution of medicine, food and water, and a designated gathering point for people hoping to be evacuated from Mariupol via humanitarian corridors.
Personal items saved from the theatre are used on stage in the play. Pic: Tiberi Shiutiv
The building was attacked after weeks of Russian fire on Mariupol.
Vira Lebedynska, the theatre’s head of music and drama, is also one of the performers in Mariupol Drama. When the bombs hit, she was sheltering in an underground room used for music recording which remained mostly untouched, she says.
It saved her.
Russia denied bombing the building deliberately. Following their own investigation, Amnesty International described the attack as a war crime.
British actor David MacCreedy heard about Mariupol Drama and met the actors during an aid trip to Ukraine and says he was struck “by just how powerful it was”. He has been instrumental in bringing the story to the UK.
“It needed to be seen here,” he says.
The play’s actors want to show that despite the destruction of the building, Mariupol’s theatre is still alive.
“Our theatre is fighting,” says Olena.”It is restored not to cry, but to fight.”
Mariupol Drama is on at the Home performing arts centre in Manchester from today until Saturday.
Entertainment
Cassie challenged over Diddy ‘freak off’ allegations – as explicit messages read in court
Sexually explicit messages between RnB singer Cassie and her former boyfriend Sean “Diddy” Combs have been read in court, with some showing her expressing apparent enthusiasm about the “freak off” sex sessions with escorts she alleges she was forced into.
The 38-year-old, whose full name is Casandra Ventura, faced a full day of cross-examination from the hip-hop mogul’s defence lawyers, who are attempting to convince the jury she consented to a “swingers lifestyle”.
Combs, 55, has pleaded not guilty to charges of sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy and transportation to engage in prostitution, in relation to Ms Ventura and other women. His lawyers have conceded he could be violent, but say nothing he did amounted to crimes of this nature.
Ms Ventura alleges she was physically abused and degraded for years by the powerful hip-hop star and music executive, accusing him of violence, coercion, blackmail and rape.
Prosecutors say he exploited and used his network of employees to facilitate illegal activities, which is a key part of the racketeering charge.
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs trial: Day 4 – As it happened
Messages sent by Cassie to Diddy were read in court. Pic: Reuters/ Jane Rosenberg
But during the fourth day of the trial in Manhattan, New York, defence lawyers pushed back, focusing on texts and emails that were both romantic and sexually explicit.
“I’m always ready to freak off,” the court heard Ms Ventura wrote in one message in August 2009. In another she told him, about a freak off: “Can’t wait.” And in another, jurors were told, she described a video of one sex session with an escort as “dope”.
The pair were together, on and off, for about 11 years from 2007 to 2018.
Combs, whose mother Janice has been in court all week to support him, along with some of his children, appeared relaxed as the messages were read aloud for jurors.
Messages from 4 March 2016 – the day before an incident at the InterContinental Hotel in Century City, Los Angeles, in which Combs was filmed on CCTV seeming to attack Ms Ventura in a hallway, as he was wearing just a towel and socks – were also read in court.
Footage from this incident, which was first made public in May 2024, has been a key piece of evidence during the trial. Ms Ventura has told the court it happened as she tried to leave a freak off session after being hit by Combs.
Janice Combs was in court to support her son once again. Pic: Reuters/ David ‘Dee’ Delgado
Freak off ‘felt dirty, grimy’
During cross-examination, the court heard Ms Ventura sent a sexually explicit message the day before this.
She also sent him a message saying, “Baby I want to FO so bad but I dont want to f*** myself up”.
Ms Ventura has told the court this was damage limitation and that she wanted to keep him happy, as she had a film premiere coming up a few days later.
Jurors also heard details of an email she sent in 2009, in which she expressed conflicting feelings about taking part in these sex sessions with escorts.
In the email, she told Combs she needed to trust him “beyond it just being sexual” – that in order to be more open sexually, “I need to feel safe, like home”.
She told him “the last time was a mistake but since has made me feel a little dirty, and grimy as opposed to sexual and spontaneous”.
This was the reason she was going “back and forth in my mind with wanting and not wanting to do it”, she wrote. At first, when they were “so in love… there were no questions asked, it felt right”.
She told him: “I get nervous that I’m just becoming the girlfriend that you get your fantasies off with.”
Brian Steel is one of the defence laywers on Combs’s team. Pic: Reuters/ David ‘Dee’ Delgado
Ms Ventura has told the court that she fell in love with Combs very quickly when they got together, when she was 21 and he was 37. She has said she wanted to please him, but became fearful of him.
At one point during cross-examination, she raised that she felt jurors were not hearing the full context of some of the messages being highlighted, saying: “There’s a lot we skipped over.”
Combs’s lawyers are painting his sexual preferences as part of a “swingers” lifestyle that has been mentioned previously at trial, saying people might not agree with it but it does not make him guilty of sex trafficking.
Questioned on this, Ms Ventura said they were “very different”.
She was also asked about drug use, her own and Combs’s, and at one point told the court she believed he was addicted to opiates when they were together.
She also said he was taken to hospital after overdosing on opiates at the Playboy Mansion in 2012 – something which was reported on by outlets including TMZ at the time, when it was said he had suffered a migraine.
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Cassie breaks down in tears during previous day’s evidence
Judge frustrated with Diddy’s lawyers
Away from the questioning, a notable moment in court came when Judge Arun Subramanian became frustrated with Diddy’s lawyers over how long they will spend cross-examining Ms Ventura.
He told them they should get a day and a half – the same time the prosecution had. “In what universe did you not understand this is what was going to happen?” he told them.
The judge is keen to keep the trial on time and particularly Ms Ventura’s evidence, as she is eight months pregnant with her third child with husband Alex Fine, who has been supporting her in court.
Read more:
The rise and fall of Diddy
Diddy – a timeline of allegations
Everything you need to know about the trial
She has now spent almost three days on the witness stand – tomorrow will be her fourth – and became emotional towards the end of her testimony on her second day.
The criminal case against Combs comes after Ms Ventura sued him in 2023, accusing him of years of physical and sexual abuse. The suit was settled in 24 hours, for a figure that was undisclosed at the time.
Ms Ventura has confirmed during the trial that this was $20m (about £15m).
Combs, 55, has been jailed since September, and faces at least 15 years or possibly life in prison if convicted.
Singer Chris Brown has been arrested over an alleged bottle attack at a London nightclub two years ago.
The US R&B star was arrested at a hotel in Manchester in the early hours of Thursday by Metropolitan Police detectives.
The 36-year-old is being held on suspicion of causing grievous bodily harm at a nightclub in Mayfair, central London, in February 2023.
He flew into Manchester Airport on a private jet on Wednesday afternoon, according to The Sun.
File pic: Invision/AP
A spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police said: “A 36-year-old man was arrested at a hotel in Manchester shortly after 02:00hrs on Thursday, 15 May on suspicion of grievous bodily harm.
“He has been taken into custody where he remains.
“The arrest relates to an incident at a venue in Hanover Square on 19 February 2023.
“The investigation is being led by detectives from the Central West Area Basic Command Unit.”
Read more from Sky News:
Ukrainian man charged over fires at properties linked to Starmer
Hamas confirms direct peace talks with US
Police hunt for teens seen ‘carrying dismembered kittens in bag’
The singer is set to go on tour in the UK in June and July.
Sky News has approached his representatives for comment.
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