Antigone in Butscha

A war photographer is at the centre of this production. A war photographer who lives with her husband in Zurich and repeatedly sets off from there to the crisis regions of the world. She wants to depict the suffering that, without her documentation, would simply happen pointlessly, unrecognised by the world and politics. She thereby hopes to contribute to reducing this suffering. Her profession might also be a bit of an escape from the all too tranquil everyday life with her husband, from the life in Switzerland that has become a bit too comfortable, from the indifferent preoccupation with herself. The fact that her husband, on the other hand, wants nothing more than to stabilise this contemplative life and start a family, to have children, is yet another reason for her to leave for faraway places. Her next operational area: Butscha, in Ukraine.

On 24 February 2022, the Ukrainian director Stas Zhyrkov fled Kyiv with his family. Since then he has been living in exile. With Antigone in Butscha, the Schauspielhaus Zürich continues its tradition as a theatre in exile and invites Stas Zhyrkov as a Related Artist at Risk to show his view of the war, of history and of how Western Europe deals with it.