Ghost Land at City Garage Theatre

Ghost Land

City Garage Theatre
2525 Michigan Ave Santa Monica

The play is made up of three, interconnected stories: a soldier dealing with combat trauma; a family trapped in the war zone whose home is invaded by a pair of Russian soldiers; and the third, a girl who survives a Russian torture cellar. The brutal reality of the war is mixed with fictional and even mystical ideas about suffering, violence, idealism, and the hunger for peace. True to the Ukrainian literary tradition from Gogol through Bulgakov to today, the play, despite its grim material, works in a dream-like, hallucinatory way that is poetic, powerful, blackly comic, and hauntingly beautiful.

Thru - Oct 15, 2023

Fridays: 8:00pm

Saturdays: 8:00pm

Sundays: 4:00pm

Price: $25-$30

Show Type: Drama

Box Office: 310-319-9939

www.citygarage.org

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Ghost Land Reviews

Average Rating based on 3 reviews

Highly Recommended
Recommended
Somewhat Recommended
Not Recommended

Night Tinted Glasses - Recommended

"...This last vignette functions with an epilogue, again with the same Doctor as before, and here the full context of all we've experienced since the lights came up at the start becomes clear. I was shaken. Among other things, the play ceased to be about just what is happening in Ukraine or even about the hell of modern war. It became about me, and you, and everyone who has ever had to endure the trauma of real evil. Of those moments when the worst of us turn this earth into a real Hell."

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- Zahir Blue

Stage Raw - Recommended

"...The play’s Brechtian style, with some actors speaking to the audience instead of to each other, has the characters serve more as symbols than as full-fledged people, though the negative depiction of the Russians fosters more sympathy for the Ukrainians, which is the goal of the play. Bondarenko’s denouement also bitterly reminds us that having a perennial, dehumanized bogeyman to pin hate on is vital to for justifying and enduring any war."

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- Martίn Hernández

Haines His Way - Recommended

"...Santa Monica’s City Garage is currently presenting the World Premiere of Ghost Land. In a program note, the playwright says the war has changed the way he writes. He says he now writes “because there are voices in my head that want to be heard. It’s like I’m haunted by ghosts of this horrible war that speak through me. It’s as if I live not only in reality, but also in some ghost land.” The reality of Bondarenko’s ghost land is vividly brought to life in Frederique Michel’s staging. It’s simple yet involving. The writing is heightened at times as is the direction and the acting."

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- Rob Stevens

Ghost Land at City Garage Theatre

Ghost Land

Ghost Land Reviews

Night Tinted Glasses - Recommended

Stage Raw - Recommended

Haines His Way - Recommended

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