Hot Pick for the Coming Week: The Last Babushka at Theater Latté Da

Article by Becky Filllinger, photos provided

The Last Babushka is currently being workshopped in Theatre Latté Da’s NEXT Festival 2022 in Minneapolis. We talked to playwright Amy Wheeler about this new work and the short window to attend the workshop. If you loved The Babushkas of Chernobyl, you must see this new work. Get tickets today!

Q:  The Babushkas of Chernobyl is a beautiful, multiple award-winning documentary that has many themes – among them the pull of ‘home’ and risk-taking to live a self-determined life. Does your protagonist in The Last Babushka learn the same lessons or something different?

A:  Our protagonist, Nadia, is a punk rocker in her 20’s who feels like she’s lost everything to this place. And in many ways, she has - family members who've died from cancer, likely from radiation exposure over time. She’s sad, angry, lost, untethered - and raging through her music. She enters the Exclusion Zone as an opportunist, in survival mode. But underneath that impulse, she is seeking to understand her troubled past and relationship to this place. The Babushkas confront and challenge her, share their stories, and she opens up to them. Ultimately, it’s a matriarchal reconciling.

Amy WheelerQ:  Has Holly Morris, the filmmaker of The Babushkas of Chernobyl, read your new work? Have you been in touch with her?

A:  Holly and I have been friends for many years, and she worked the film in residence at Hedgebrook on Whidbey Island, where I was Executive Director. So, I was on the exciting journey as she traveled to Chernobyl to interview the Babushkas. I remember when she first met them in 2013 - as a journalist on assignment for a Slate Magazine piece about the 25th anniversary of the accident. And in 2014 when she encountered the Stalkers, young people who are sneaking into the Zone illegally to react a video game and search for artifacts. 

When Holly sought me out to bring the film to the stage, I jumped at the chance! I could already see the three main characters onstage - they are so robust and full of life and stories. What fascinated me as the theatrical question is: what can we learn from these women, while they are still with us, about living in sync with nature? How do we live with an invisible threat and stay connected to each other and the land? They have this deep, intrinsic connection to their homeland - the place, its history and culture - that I haven’t yet experienced as an American. But I find I crave that experience. One character refers to them as the "center of the earth” - and they are.

Natalie NowytskiWhat also inspires me is telling a cross-generational story set in this post-Apocalyptic place that has also become a thriving green world. So, my collaborator Natalie Nowytski and I are drawing from the film’s transcripts, and creating an imagined story around the Babushkas’ stories.

Our piece is set prior to current events in Ukraine. As we witness Russia’s war on Ukraine, we're amazed at the people’s courage and resilience. When you get to know the Babushkas, you understand that the fierce love of homeland is intrinsic to who Ukrainians are and always have been.

Q:  I think your musical score will be delightful – bursting with Ukrainian folk tune melodies. How many musical numbers are in the play?

A:  Well, this is a workshop which means we’re revising the script and writing new music as we speak! And the music is mystical, haunting, energetic - a mash-up of traditional Ukrainian village folk music with punk rock and contemporary folk. A cross-generational blending of the two worlds of the piece. My co-creator, Minneapolis-based composer Natalie Nowytski, is an extraordinary first-generation Ukrainian-American musician and performer who brings her ancestral connection to the music. Her grandmother, Oksana Bryn, was her voice coach - classical and opera. The folk music is something she grew up with as a byproduct of being raised Ukrainian. Natalie told me, “I don't know that anyone ever really taught it to me - it just always was."

Q:  Thriving in a toxic environment – another theme from the documentary – must surface in your play. Perhaps there are lessons we can all learn from living in toxic environments, not all of which are caused by pollutants? 

A:  Yes, there’s so much to learn from the Babushkas - these women who’ve lived on the most toxic land on earth their whole lives. They were evacuated in 1986, then snuck back in to live there illegally for the past 35 years. They live off the land - gardening, raising animals, foraging for mushrooms. And the land is thriving because of the small human footprint: nature is taking over; extinct animals are coming back into the Zone. Scientists are studying them to learn about the long-term effects of radiation on humans. And remarkably, statistically they’ve outlived other evacuees who didn’t return. 

Q:  What days are your reading at Theater Latté Da? How do we purchase tickets?  

A:  Theater Latté Da's NEXT Festival readings of The Last Babushka are on July 30th and August 1st at 7:30pm. Go here for info and tickets: https://www.latteda.org/next-festival-2022.

Q:  How may we follow your news?

A:  I don’t currently have a website, but I’ve launched a new venture during the pandemic to build the audience for playwrights and new work for the stage. Play Club is a "book club with a theatrical twist." We read and discuss a play-a-month by a featured playwright, then members meet the playwright via Zoom for a conversation and Q&A. I’d love for people to know about it. Here’s the link: https://www.theplayclub.org/

And if your readers would like more info on Natalie, her website is https://www.natalien.com/. The bandcamp site is https://natalienowytski.bandcamp.com/album/amerikana.