A steppe is a large expanse of bare land, such as those found throughout the south eastern parts of Europe and the Russian territory of Siberia. However, for the hundreds of thousands of Polish people forcefully expelled from their country by Soviet forces during the Second World War, it is much more. To them, it is the icy wasteland traversed by the unending train journeys, the vast expanse where they toiled endlessly in the fields, and the graveyard where thousands were left dead. To them, it is a place of pain, suffering and eternal remembrance.
Author Grace Pundyk (The Honey Trail) has created the play Steppe: A Journey of Unforgetting as a way of connecting with Kasia, the grandmother she never knew, a Polish woman who experienced the hardships of life on a steppe during the Second World War. The production depicts three letters which she sent during her imprisonment by the Soviets, which lasted several years.
Three different actors will play out the story of Kasia (Anna Kennedy, Laura Jane Turner and Nisha Joseph), inspired by each of the three letters as these identities become more fluid and ever-shifting throughout the show.
Pundyk says she wants to bring the previously censored details of the Second World War into the light, as the brutality inflicted upon the Polish people by Soviet soldiers is “a story a lot of people do not know”.
“They all know about Hitler and the Jewish people, but because of that silence around the Soviet’s siding with the Allies too, a lot of that horrible stuff that happened was repressed until now.”
Pundyk says she intends to challenge people’s preconceptions of theatre as “this thing where an audience can become very comfortable”. As such, Steppe will be performed in a rail yard, where a disused train carriage will act as the theatre.
Steppe: A Journey of Unforgetting will be performed 17-19 and 24-26 September with evening shows at 7 pm and two Saturday matinees at 2 pm at the Newport Rail Yard.
To purchase tickets, please visit melbournefringe.com.au or call (03) 9660 9666.
