Counting Sheep

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4 February 2019 · Follow on Stagedoor

“There is an inherent theatricality in most protests, a spectacle that disrupts the status quo. Mark and Marichka Marczyk's folk opera harnesses this idea to create an immersive performance that thrusts you into the heart of Ukraine's 2014 Maidan Revolution. The result is a messy and vibrant evening in which life and death, weddings and funerals tango together in close embrace, with utterly beguiling music that mixes traditional folk songs with new compositions that float across the performance.”

Overview

The award-winning (Scotsman Fringe First, Amnesty International Freedom of Expression) theatrical sensation comes to London in a brand new version from the directors of the Belarus Free Theatre.

Based on Mark and Marichka Marczyks' first hand experiences during the 2014 Kiev Uprising, Counting Sheep invites you to lose yourself in the events that changed the course of Ukrainian history forever. Sing, march, protest, dance, eat, help, recoil, fight, laugh, cry. With folk singing, found footage and revolutionary staging this ‘Guerrilla Folk Opera' is an electrifying exploration of human resilience.

This production is a unique artistic collaboration between Mark and Marichka Marczyk, whose lives changed forever while fighting for freedom and love in Maidan Square, and Natalia Kaliada and Nicolai Khalezin, founders of Belarus Free Theatre, whose struggles with the repressive dictatorship in Belarus are well documented. This joint theatrical statement from people who went through real life and death situations makes for an explosive stage experience.

15+

Critic reviews

Everish agency and political message take hold and the unwavering and tireless company succeeds in sharing a heartwarming sense of belonging

⋅ Broadway World

Counting Sheep is immersive theatre at its finest

⋅ Theatre Weekly

The touching truth of the love story at the evening's centre is a reminder of how, in the worst of circumstances, when certain individuals are given the chance they can transcend what is ugly and cynical to create a redemptive, if fragile, new reality

⋅ Arts Desk

A piece of sound and fury but no clear view of revolution from the cheap seats

⋅ Evening Standard

This immersive Edinburgh hit about the 2014 Ukraine revolution has been thrillingly reimagined

⋅ Time Out

As an audience member, you have no choice but to stand up and join the protest

Exeunt

It was the piece in a nutshell – an embrace, heartfelt, done with genuine care

⋅ WhatsOnStage

Getting the balance between the personal and the social is always challenging, but Counting Sheep seems to get it just right

⋅ A Younger Theatre

Propulsive, kinetic, immersive show about the 2014 Ukraine revolution