KYIV.- Faktura 10, a core initiative of RIBBON International, as curated by Marta Kuzma, and the Ivan Franko National Academic Drama Theater announce the world premiere of Galicia, a new play written and directed by Richard Maxwell

Galicia, a new play written and directed by Richard Maxwell, will be staged for the first time at the Ivan Franko National Academic Drama Theater in Kyiv, Ukraine, from Friday, August 22 through Monday, August 25. Commissioned by Faktura 10, as curated by Marta Kuzma, Artistic Director and Chief Curator of Faktura 10, Galicia is a continuation of Federico García Lorca’s seminal play La Casa de Bernarda Alba (1936), a tragedy that takes place in a small village in Spain.

The play is presented in Ukrainian with a Ukrainian cast selected from both Maxwell’s Theater for Beginners workshop - held in Kyiv in March 2025 at the Ivan Franko Theater - and through street casting in conjunction with the creative studio Baby Prod. The cast includes: Kseniya Boychenko; Oksana Briukhovetska; Anke Cristodorescu; Nataliia Khodos; Bohdana-Valeriia Korniienko; Dmytro Krashchenko; Alina Lianyha; Yevheniia Nesterova; Maria Noshchenko; Yana Potselui; Oksana Saboldash; Khilyal Tiufekchioglu.

In La Casa de Bernarda Alba, Federico García Lorca explores love, familial ties and the ways in which men control other women’s lives. Bernarda Alba, forever concerned with appearances, runs her household with an iron fist. She is about to marry off her eldest daughter, Angustias, to Pepe el Romano, although Pepe el Romano is conducting a secret affair with Adela, Bernarda's youngest daughter. Lorca's play, a production of which was directed by Maxwell in 2024, in New York, ends tragically with the death by suicide of Adela, who believes that Pepe has been shot by her mother.

In Galicia, Richard Maxwell proceeds with the tale as one of a family catastrophe, exploring how a family might pick up the pieces as a civil war unfolds in Spain. Choosing to focus on the family that remains together in the aftermath of Adela’s suicide, Maxwell considers the impacts of tragedy and war on a family, and the underlying causes of conflict.

The new play will also see audiences experience The Experimental Stage in the Ivan Franko Theater's set space, which has been arranged specifically for Galicia. This will be the first artistic intervention in the space where the third stage of the theater, the Stage under the Chimeras, will be created.

Throughout the production, Maxwell has been working with the Kyiv-based architectural firm ФОРМА (Forma) on both stage lighting and sets. With relation to their collaboration, Maxwell notes, “It was clear upon meeting Ira [Miroshnykova] and Oleksii [Petrov] of ФОРМА that they understand and, in fact, are an emblem of a new attitude: seeing the value in transcending the barriers between siloed disciplines in order to find a deeper collaboration. The fact that ФОРМА was already working with Ivan Franko Theater on their renovation made the arrangement a perfect fit.”

Marta Kuzma, Artistic Director and Chief Curator of Faktura 10 says:
“Upon my appointment as Artistic Director and Chief Curator of Faktura 10, one of my first inclinations was to approach Richard Maxwell. His sensibility as a playwright, theater director, and artist who explores how rooms and contexts influence creative processes foregrounded a project that would unfold within the context of war. The subsequent research visit with Richard to Ukraine inspired the project’s architecture, with ten parts each relating to and embedded within the other.

“The research trip to Kyiv one year ago also resulted in a generative friendship between Richard and leadership at the Ivan Franko Theater.”

Richard Maxwell, playwright and Artistic Director of New York City Players says:
“Something that a lot of people miss when staging Lorca's plays is his particular brand of humour that people tell me is very Spanish; a certain sardonic view of the world in the face of tragic events. I can relate to this as evidenced by my own work, and thereby feel affection for and a license to write my own fiction from it.

“When Yevhen Nyshchuk - Artistic Director of Ivan Franko National Academic Drama Theater - gave me a tour of Ivan Franko, I found a kindred spirit in that they are open to trying new things, and to exploring different venue possibilities. The newly converted upstairs space which sits under the shadows of the chimeras will enrich the conversation the theater has with its audience. I am proud to inaugurate this new venue.”