2012 was the first year since 2005 that my April hadn’t been all about promoting awareness of the nuclear accident at Chernobyl. The history of the project is longer than the piece itself, and explore this site for more information. I adapted the play from 2015 Nobel Prize winner Svetlana Alexievich’s book Voices From Chernobyl.
For the thirtieth anniversary of the accident, I’ll tweet the entire script during the month of April. Follow @VoicesChornobyl to read.
Below is a sample of the script and a demo video we produced for the 2007 International Chernobyl Conference. We used to promote awareness and raise funds for Chernobyl charities by doing readings around Los Angeles. If you are interested, please contact me.
CHARACTERS (and ensemble members)
Katya Shimanky, young girl at the time of the accident (Kappa Victoria Wood)
Vasily Shimanky, Physicist (Brad Beacom)
Irina Shimanky, Doctor at a Radiation Hospital (Katie Sweeney)
Anna Sushko, Resident of Chornobyl (Enci)
Arkady Filin, Clean-up Crew Member (Aaron Lyons)
Grigory Brovkin, Former Soldier, Leader of a Clean-up Crew (Michael Laurino)
Stepanov Morozkov, Vasily and Grigory’s Supervisor (Brian Sparrow)
Sergei Gurin, Cameraman from Minsk (Shawn Macaulay)
Ludmila (A Solitary Human Voice), Wife of a Fireman (Kristin Mochnick / Carolyn Blais)
Valentina (A Lonely Human Voice), Wife of a Clean-up Crew Member (Daryl Dickerson)
NOTE
At times the characters speak to their Interviewer and at times they are back in the moment. If there is a slash (/) on one line, then the following line should overlap at the point of the slash (/).
VOICES FROM CHORNOBYL
Adapted by Cindy Marie Jenkins
From the book by Svetlana Alexievich
KATYA
You’re writing a book, but so far no book has helped, explained it to me. No more than the theater or the movies. I figure it out without them. By myself.
ANNA
There was no sign.
KATYA
We’re all going through this alone, and we don’t know what to do.
ANNA
Inspiration for ANNA
Sometimes, your palm itches and you know to get ready. But today, no signs.
KATYA
We don’t know what to do. I want to love, I try to love! I pray for my love! And—-
VASILY
My first reaction was to call my wife and warn her. But all our telephones at the Institute were bugged. That eternal fear, beaten into us through the decades.
ANNA
The first fear came out of the blue, over water—
VASILY
My family didn’t know.
KATYA
My father is particularly bewildered.
VASILY
My daughter – at this moment she would be walking to school. With friends. Outside.
KATYA
He always taught me to live by books. And suddenly books cannot help. My parents are confused. My father does not know how to live without the counsel of books. Without Chekhov and Tolstoy, and the old Greek masters.
Remember? I want to remember and at the same time I don’t.
VASILY
Shut the windows.
KATYA
I remember my mother’s phone call in the early morning.
IRINA
There’s a fire at the atomic station. Orders are to keep the radio on.
KATYA
We lived in Pripyat, just three miles from the reactor. I was born and bred there.
VASILY
Listen to me very closely.
IRINA
What are you talking about?
VASILY
Quiet. Shut the windows. Put all the food in plastic bags.
Put on rubber gloves and wipe every surface with a wet rag. Then put the rag in a plastic bag and get rid of it. The laundry drying on the balcony has to be washed again.
IRINA
What’s happened ther—
VASILY
I hung up. She was in medicine. She was bound to understand.
KATYA
Remember? Perhaps it’s better not to. Just in case. We saw the fire—
ANNA
–and we figured it was temporary, and no one was worried about it. We didn’t know about atoms, I swear! One nightingale sang all night—that means a sunny day.
LUDMILA
In the middle of the night, I heard a noise. I –I don’t know what to tell you about! Death or love? Or is it one and the same? What shall I tell you? We were newlyweds. We still held hands in the street, even if we were just going to the store. I told him: “I love you.” But I didn’t even know how much. I had no idea. We lived in the hostel of the fire station where he worked. Below us, on the first floor, were the fire engines.
Red fire engines. That was his work. That was all he ever wanted to do.
(Takes a deep breath) In the middle of the night, I heard a noise. I looked out the window. He saw me and said, “Shut the windows and get back to sleep. There’s a fire at the reactor. I’ll be back soon.”
(pause)
I did not see the explosion itself. Only the flames. Everything seemed to flow.
ANNA
KATYA’s drawing from 2011 production: Voices From Chornobyl Jr.
People took their small children outside, lifted them up and said, “Look, how beautiful! Don’t forget this.” We stood in that horrible black smoke.
LUDMILA
The whole sky. The flames were high. And smoke. Horrible heat.
KATYA
The smoke over the station was not black or yellow, it was light blue.
ANNA
We did not know that Death could be so beautiful.
IRINA
The police and the military set up roadblocks, they were letting no one out. We spent all day watching TV, waiting for Gorbachev to speak. The authorities were silent.
KATYA
I stared all day out of the closed window. It was just an ordinary fire, being put out by ordinary firemen.
LUDMILA
And he was still out. They went off to the fire without their protective gear, just in their shirt sleeves. They were summoned as if to a normal fire. I sat and waited. Four o’clock.
VALENTINA
I’d go to church, where it was so quiet.
LUDMILA
Five……
VALENTINA
The way it is in the mountains sometimes.
LUDMILA
Six……..
VALENTINA
So quiet. You can forget your life in there. But in the mornings, I’d wake up. I’d wake up and feel around for him. Where is he? I’d shut my eyes and think about him until I fell asleep. In my sleep, he would come to me, but very quickly. Vanish immediately.
LUDMILA
Seven o’clock.
VALENTINA
Where is he? I can’t tell you what it is like. I don’t know how I manage to stay alive.
LUDMILA
At seven they informed me that he was in the hospital. I ran over there, but police would not let anyone in. Only ambulances could drive in. The policemen shouted: the ambulances are radioactive, don’t’ get close. I was not alone, all the wives whose husbands were at the reactor that night, were there. I grabbed onto a Doctor as she walked by—“Get me inside!”
IRINA & LUDMILA
I can’t. He’s in a bad way. They all are.
LUDMILA
Pleas! Just to see him.
IRINA
(Hands her a form)
Sign this.
Do you have children?
LUDMILA
I thought, I have to say yes. If I say no, they won’t let me see him.
Yes.
IRINA
How many?
LUDMILA
A boy and a girl.
IRINA
Now listen. The central nervous system is completely damaged, the bone marrow is completely destroyed.
LUDMILA
AL right, so he’ll be a bit nervous…….
IRINA
And listen—
IRINA & LUDMILA
If you cry, I’ll throw you out right away. You may not hug or kiss. Don’t come close.
LUDMILA
I’ll give you half an hour.
VASILY
That day, April 26th, I was in Moscow. On a business trip.
ANNA
The first fear was…..in the morning we found dead moles in the garden. Who killed them?
KATYA
We’re all going through this alone, and we don’t know what to do. I cannot comprehend it with my mind. My grandmother said she had no childhood. She had the war. Their childhood is the war and mine is Chornobyl.
GRIGORY
I had just returned from Afghanistan. I wanted to live, to get married. I wanted to get married right away. And instead I got a notice with a red stripe
Meaning “Special Draft.” Show up with your things at the following address within an hour. My mother started weeping. She thought they were sending me to war again.
ARKADY
At the time I was thinking about something else. This will seem strange to you.
GRIGORY
(To ARKADY) Get in the van.
ARKADY
But just then I was getting a divorce from my wife. Everything else seemed minor. They would come suddenly and a special van was waiting downstairs. Just like 1937.
VALENTINA
I loved him madly. Maybe you shouldn’t use my name.
VASILY
I called once, two, three times, but they wouldn’t put me through.
VALENTINA
There are secrets. People say prayers in private. Whispering.
VASILY
I found an assistant. “I’m calling from Moscow. I have urgent information. About an accident!” As soon as I started talking about the accident, they disconnected me.
VALENTINA
No, use my name. Say it to God.
STEPANOV
I heard that there was a fire there, and it’s been put out.
VASILY
That’s a lie! Deceit!
It’s a serious accident. According to my calculations, the radioactive cloud is moving towards us. Towards Belarussia. We must immediately give prophylactic iodine treatment to the population and move out everyone living close to the station. People and animals within 100 kilometers have to be moved away.
STEPANOV
Had a phone call. From the Kremlin. From Gorbachev. Something about not starting a panic in Belarussia. The West are making too much of it already.
KATYA
At the foot of the hill puffs a tractor
At the top of the hill a reactor
If we hadn’t heard it from the Swedes
We’d still be eating all those seeds.
Actor Shawn Macaulay in front of his painting for original 2006 production, Open Fist Theatre
Actor Aaron Lyons painted this image of the clean up crew for original 2006 production, Open Fist Theatre.