Katia Haddad’s play MARIUPOL is based on her treasured memories of the Ukrainian city
CC: Hi Katia! What can you tell us about the play?
It's about two characters: Steve – it’s his nickname - is a very flamboyant and charismatic Merchant Navy officer, and Galina Is a more reserved student from Russia who comes to Mariupol on holiday. They meet in Mariupol in 1992 and they have a summer romance. And then fate brings them together 10 years later, in 2002, and then even later, in 2022… I can't give more of the plot away!
I really hope that people will come and see [the play] because through these individual journeys and through the things that happen to them, we can understand the human cost of any war - that's what I was hoping to achieve.
It's a story which is very personal story to me, because Mariupol was a city that I loved in my youth. I visited it many times; my best friend's family lived there, and we spent our summers there. The last time I was in Mariupol was in 1992; obviously, the city was destroyed in the first days and weeks of the Russian invasion, and it really made me feel that I need to do something [to] pay tribute to the city and the people that I loved.
Would you tell us about your memories of Mariupol?
Maybe not many people know this, because of the images they’ve seen of huge steel works in an industrial city, but Mariupol really had the most amazing beaches. We would go to a place just outside of Mariupol called Belosarayskaya Sandbank – it was quite an amazing space, a nature reserve and protected area with thousands of birds, fish, and seashells. We were staying there in a small bungalow almost at the end of it.
You know how you get that first experience of a perfect beach? You will always come back in your head to that first perfect beach, or beach sunset – well, that happened for me there.
What does London mean to you?
It's the best city in the world, and I'm always immensely proud to come back to London. For me, it’s the place where you can do anything and you can become anyone.
But what really makes it - apart from amazing culture that we have here - for me are Londoners. I just think they have this absolutely unique attitude towards life. The best example of this, for me, would be that if you go somewhere on the Piccadilly Line you will see people going about their daily lives next to tourists, and then just passing by will be a group of naked bikers – a true Londoner would never even bat on eyelid!
I just love it, and the secret of that love is that I don't live in London; I live a little bit outside in a quiet village. So, every time I come to London I feel this excitement as I go to a show, but then I come back and get to wake up to birdsong and the absolute peace and tranquillity of the countryside. I think that’s the dream!
What's your story, as a writer?
I've been living in this country for 30 years, and about 15 years ago I gathered my courage to write in my second language. So I wrote a novel, and now I am writing plays.
With my first novel, I went on a course because I'm quite methodical with everything I do - I wouldn't just try doing something if I don't know how to. So I wrote the novel, and then I went on the playwriting course and wrote two plays - and now I've been on a script writing course, so my next project could be a film script!
I think I've been a storyteller probably all my life. I just didn't quite know how and when I would be ready to tell my stories.
Why should people come and see Mariupol?
We hope it's going to be a powerful piece of theatrical storytelling in this very minimalist setting. We hope to make a maximum impact, especially in the space that we have here at The Cockpit where you have such an intimate experience between the audience and the actors on stage.
I’m not going to praise my own work, because my work is only probably just 50% of it, really. The rest is on the rest of the team, and I'm very confident with that. We have two brilliant actors, a very experienced director and fantastic designers onboard. We're really putting our hearts into it.
MARIUPOL will play at The Cockpit for 15 performances between 5th and 22nd February 2025. To buy tickets go to https://www.thecockpit.org.uk/show/mariupol