David Mitchell, Timothy Thomas, Kayla Dvorak Feld, and Sam Bardwell Photo by Dan Norman

The individuals whose testimony was tapped include refugees from the current war to fend off the Russian invasion, immigrants who left Ukraine after the fall of the Soviet Union, descendants of earlier immigrants searching for their cultural heritage, a young Ukrainian in the U.S. on a student visa, an American mother of an adopted Ukrainian daughter, an interpreter helping to bridge language barriers, a Ukrainian mother desperate to get medical help for her wounded child, a prosthetist who founded a non-profit organization in the U.S. that provides Ukrainians who lose limbs in the war with artificial replacements, and a Ukrainian deminer (a job title I had not heard before) in need of those services. They range in age from elderly to children.

The testimonies were divided among six actors who adeptly switched off roles, each playing two to four characters. Actually, calling them characters feels like a disservice, as every speaker and each scrap of dialogue represents a real person's actual experience. Many are horrific, though there are some moments of tenderness and joy. Some of the speakers are in relation to another, such as a husband who insisted there was no need to worry and a wife who was frantic to flee their home, fearing the attacks would reach them. The husband scoffed, saying "You watch too much news." And then ...

An Ocean Away opened and closed with Ukrainian music performed by the actors, with music interspersed throughout, which provided a direct, sensory experience of Ukrainian culture while offering a reprise from the text's intensity. Kureichik has woven the narratives back and forth throughout the play's two acts, with a character sharing their story in one scene, and returning later to continue their tale, so that we received short bites of each testimony at a time. This made for an engaging audience experience by breaking up what would otherwise be a series of long monologues, though it counted on the audience being able to follow the hopscotching from one story to another. Fortunately, the actors make nimble transitions from one character to another.

The actors were effective as each of the persons they portrayed, but I will cite the most memorable of those guises. David Mitchell was compelling as the student whose student visa to study in the U.S shields him from being conscripted into he war back home as he struggles with considering whether this makes him a coward. Timothy Thomas, as a foreman who has given up an arm to the war, yet, at the age of 50, intends to go back to the fight, was equally stirring. Kayla Dvorak Feld was immeasurably moving as a mother seeking justice for the losses she was forced to bear. Barbara Berlovitz cast a spell as a child of the old diaspora, unable to accept these new refugees into the community her people has worked to build; Liv Kemp was memorable as a teenager struggling to meld her Ukrainian and Jewish ancestry into a self-identity. Most gripping was Sam Bardwell's portrayal of the deminer left blind and legless by his vocation, whose stoic attitude toward survival was conveyed with chilling authenticity.

Lisa Channer and Vladimir Rovinsky, co-directors of this production (and co-founders of Theatre Novi Most in 1998), used simple set pieces–three white, square tables and about a dozen white straight back chairs against a black background–to fashion various locations and effects, such as having chairs lifted at their bottom by actors, then set down in upturned positions to effectively convey the results of a bomb explosion. The shift from one speaker and their story to another was presented with both clarity and fluidity–the audience easily knew when the narrative was being reset without feeling an intrusive stop and start.

The title An Ocean Away was made visible with captivating projections by Kathy Maxwell that depicted a swelling ocean, with images overlaid to emphasize the distance between those who have sought refuge in distant Minnesota from the turmoil of a land still beloved to them. The projections also included film footage of their homeland, both its beauty and the destruction wrought by war. Dan Dukich's sound design and Shirley Runkel's lighting design worked in tandem with the projections to create the range of emotions that accompany these testimonies. Runkel also coordinated the simple scenic and props for the production. Lily Turner's costume designs effectively carry traces of the old folkways–in particular, the resplendent embroidery–laden on the work-a-day apparel of contemporary life that has become fairly universal worldwide.

Andrei Kureichik is Belarusian by birth. He has academic training in law, journalism, and non-profit management, and has worked in all three realms, in addition to being a prolific film director, screenwriter, and playwright. His work champions the cause of democracy, peace, and justice and has been performed in Belarus, Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania, and Finland, in addition to the United States, where he is currently in residence. While in An Ocean Away he synthesized statements collected from Minnesota's Ukrainian community, rather than devising an original text, his knowledge of the world being described clearly serves to enhance the play, and he has used sound dramatic judgement in making choices about the sequencing and pacing of these segments.

An Ocean Away is a modest work, in some ways–certainly in the scale of its production and its presentation of snippets, albeit compelling ones, rather than an elaborate narrative. It is not what one thinks of as a "theatrical event." There is a place for work on this scale that informs audiences to build a knowledge base regarding a corner of the world that may not be well known, and to develop empathy for the human lives touched by that corner. The Theatre Novi Most production of An Ocean Away presented both the facts and the humanity behind the facts to convey the challenges, joys, and heartbreak of this diaspora community, whose homeland is in the throes of an existential crisis.

An Ocean Away, a production by Theatre Novi Most, ran October 30, 2025 - November 8, 2025 at the Center for Performing Arts, 3754 Pleasant Ave #220W, Minneapolis MN. For information about Theatre Novi Most, please visit theatrenovimost.org or call 612-338-6131.

Playwright: Andrei Kureichik; Directors: Lisa Channer and Vladimir Rovinsky; Costume Design: Lily Turner; Lighting Design, Scenic and Prop Coordination: Shirley Runkel; Sound Designer: Dan Dukich; Projection Designer: Kathy Maxwell; Dramaturgy: Wendy Weckwerth; Ukrainian Translation: Alona Movchan; Stage Manager: Samantha Fairchild Poppen.

Cast: Sam Bardwell (Guitar Player/Blind Deminer), Barbara Berlovitz (Old-School Diaspora Girl/American Friend), Kayla Dvorak Feld (Interpreter/Singer/Mother in Search of Justice), Liv Kemp (Teenager in Search of Self-Identification/Costume Designer/Stubborn Wife/Girl), David Mitchell (Son of Old Diaspora/IT Student), Timothy Thomas * (Doctor/Volunteer/Foreman with One Arm).

*these roles performed by Derek Lee Miller on November 8.