LVIV, Ukraine -- In a bomb shelter in western Ukraine, a young woman holds her phone in the air, trying to get a WiFi signal, while another sips a matcha latte. Long silences hang between sentences as the small collection of strangers tossed together after the latest air-raid siren start to make small talk.
While it is a real bomb shelter, this is far from a real air-raid alert: Shmata (Rag) is a play, and one of an increasing number of performances being put on underground in Ukrainian bomb shelters since Russia launched a large-scale invasion eight months ago. And it's one that, despite the dramaticism, removes itself somewhat from the war's intensity.
"Someone changes their socks, someone cleans with disinfectant, and someone even brought a window with them to wash," director Yana Tytarenko said.
The phrase "theater of war" has slowly seeped into public discourse in recent years. A fast-moving news cycle, constant fighting, and frequent reports of shelling lend a frenzied tenor to the war in Ukraine. But against the nerve-wracking background of bombardments, air-raid sirens, and evacuations, the need to deal with more mundane matters -- procuring food, stitching together uniforms, or completing paperwork -- is a pervasive facet of the conflict, too.
This summer, director and researcher Kostyantyn Vasyukov took his own play Vona Viyna (She Is War), around the country, and later to a theater festival in Nuremberg, Germany. In Ukraine, one place it was performed was the eastern city of Kharkiv -- Ukraine's second-largest and a frequent target of heavy Russian assaults.
"In the morning in the city center, people were killed by Russian shelling...just a couple of streets away from us," he said, recalling the day of the performance on August 30.
Conversely, Vona Viyna deals with some of the more routine and less bloody aspects of the Russian invasion -- say, the bureaucracy involved in exporting a horse. Focusing specifically on the female experience of wartime, Vasyukov says, he and co-author and actress Svitlana Melnyk collected more than 30 stories from Ukrainian women to channel the various social roles they played.
"Volunteer work in the kitchen in the army," Vasyukov gave as an example. "You peel potatoes, cook soup, somehow communicate with soldiers."
The woman upon whom this particular part of the play was based saw her own story unfold on stage. "I think she could see from the outside how important her work is," Vasyukov said. "It may seem boring and of little significance but it is important for everyone in Ukraine to be able to step back...and realize they are doing everything right."
Theaters and cultural institutions have been targeted by Russia -- especially in the weeks after the invasion was launched on February 24. On March 16, Russian forces bombed the Donetsk Academic Regional Drama Theater in Mariupol, where civilians were sheltering and the word 'Children' had been scrawled on the pavement at both ends of the building. An AP investigation concluded that about 600 people were killed.
The Ukrainian Defense Ministry said in early August that some 530 "Ukrainian institutions of culture and art," including theaters and religious and cultural centers, had been destroyed in Russian strikes.
Mykolayiv -- a southern city that, unlike Mariupol, remains under Ukrainian control -- has been the target of intense bombardments for months -- including a missile attack early on September 22 that damaged the Mykolayiv Academic Art Drama Theater in the city center and smashed railroad tracks nearby.
"Windows, doors, computers, roof, tables, sewing factory, historical sculptures, iron fence destroyed," the theater's deputy director, Natalya Izbash, told RFE/RL.
The attack came weeks after the theater opened its new season in a bomb shelter at a separate location.
"Nothing is working in our city of Mykolayiv -- no museums, no cinemas, no schools, no kindergartens. There are three theaters in our city, but only ours is functioning," Izbash said earlier in September.
"The people who remained in Mykolayiv have nowhere to go and distract themselves from the war. Every day a rocket arrives, destruction, the city dies," Izbash said.
Like some 12 million Ukrainians who have been displaced by the Russian invasion, many of the theater's former actors have sought refuge abroad or elsewhere in Ukraine. Those that stayed had to learn new roles in a short space of time.
One, Serhiy Hololobov, had his own house destroyed in recent shelling. The following day he nonetheless participated in a classical-music event at the theater, showcasing soloists from the regional philharmonic choir. And they too have been involved in the war effort.
"From the beginning of the war, our actors and workers sewed flags, balaclavas, and raincoats for military personnel," Izbash said.
Adapting to a smaller space and a new location has been challenging for actors in Mykolayiv. But for some productions, the spartan circumstances have contributed to the atmosphere that the play is attempting to create.
In Kyiv, experimental play Zhadayka (Recall) depicts episodes from everyday life under invasion -- utilizing zero electricity or music, because often, at the front lines, there is none.
"Since I was under fire in Irpin, I developed the play in such a way that it could be performed in any room where people are hiding," director Dmytro Khodakivskiy, a territorial-defense volunteer who helped liberate the hard-hit city near Kyiv from Russian forces last spring, told RFE/RL.
The actors themselves create the lighting with hand-held flashlights, and the sound design with their own diaphragms.
"Fighters have complimented us -- 'You completely captured the feeling of this war,'" he said. "We chose a place where it will not be necessary to stop the performance on account of an air-raid siren. Where we and the audience will not be smothered by [Russian President Vladimir] Putin's shells."
Tytarenko, in Lviv, developed her play specifically with the setting in mind.
"Shmata is the first performance that was conceived specifically for this auditorium, for this bomb shelter" she said. "For me, this basement space has long been artistically interesting, and in this case, everything was serendipitous."
