Witnessing war across borders: Tamara Trunova’s stagings of Natalka Vorozhbyt’s Bad Roads in Ukraine and Sweden

Abstract

The article presents a comparative analysis of the Ukrainian and Swedish theatre performances of Bad Roads, as directed by Tamara Trunova and staged in Kyiv since 2018 and in Gothenburg in 2024. Both performances are analyzed in relation to Natalka Vorozhbyt’s play of the same title from 2017, depicting the Donbas war in 2014. Analysis of both the text and the onstage plays reveals a significant pattern of witnessing and communication based on uncertainty and suspicion. Although enacted differently – depending on the medium (text/stage) and cultural context (Ukrainian/Swedish) – the author argues that the play’s emphasis on disbelief resists structures of victimization and blurs the categories of victim/perpetrator. By situating these findings within the post-colonial processes that followed the Euromaidan in 2013–14, the article identifies the category of “implicated witnessing” as a mode of artistic communication that elicits critical thinking, self-reflection, and ethical responsibility from audiences both within Ukraine and beyond its borders.