Golem | Ukraine
Written by Sasha Denisova
Translated by Maria Saltykova
Directed by Kay Martinovich
In partnership with Trap Door Theatre
Synopsis: Max’s ex-wife, Marta — a bohemian 47-year-old woman from New York — arrives in Ukraine for his funeral. However, his widow Maria, a young artist, refuses to bury him. His body has finally been found on the front line. Yet Maria refuses to identify or bury him. Because Max is alive — he has been coming back.
At first, Marta believes Maria. She looks around her former husband’s study — she is back in the apartment where, as young students, they dreamed of becoming writers, reading European literature together. But Max went to the front to defend his country and died. Though he could barely take out the trash — an intellectual, a screenwriter, a poet.
Then Marta finds a doll in the wardrobe. The doll looks like Max.
The doll has a body sewn from pillows, and a face made of papier-mâché and fragments of Max’s photographs. It is him — half-alive, but loved. Marta is forced to play Maria’s game: to have dinner with the doll, watch the news, argue about whom he loved more, and read aloud their favorite novel — The Golem — about a Prague rabbi who creates a man from clay, neither alive nor dead, but living forever. A ghost.
Playwright - Sasha Denisova
Translator -
Director -
Playwright - Sasha Denisova is a Ukrainian playwright, director, and novelist whose work merges documentary realism with poetic imagination. Born in Kyiv, she studied philology at Taras Shevchenko University before pursuing theater in Moscow, London, and beyond —including training at the Royal Court and graduating from the School for Theater Leaders at the Moscow Art Theatre School. In her plays, Denisova weaves together documentary storytelling, live speech, phantasmagoria, and grotesque — a signature style evident from her first major production Light My Fire, which received the Golden Mask Award in 2012, to her final Russian work Batman vs. Brezhnev. During her years in Russia, she wrote and staged over 25 productions. In Russia, she served as deputy artistic director of the Mayakovsky Theater and as chief dramaturg at the Mey- erhold Center, while also teaching documentary theater and screenwriting at the Moscow School of New Cin- ema. She became a leading figure in the Russian-lan- guage documentary stage—until the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, when she fled Moscow for Warsaw. Most of her productions were canceled or continue to run without her name. Since the war began, Denisova has written and staged a series of urgent, lyrical plays about war, exile, and re- sistance: My Mama and the Full-Scale Invasion, created and performed at CCCB–Museum of Contemporary Art Barcelona, with the support of Artists at Risk. The play has been translated into English, French, German, Span- ish, and Catalan. The Hague, a surreal tribunal staged by Ukrainian children against putin, told through the eyes of a girl from Mariupol. The piece has been performed in Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, France, the Netherlands, Lithuania, and the U.S. (Arlekin Players Theatre, Bos- ton). She's also written Six Ribs of Anger, about Ukrai- nian refugees across Europe (Kommuna Warszawa); Decameron: Love Stories During the War (Warsaw); and Golem, a new play about two women grieving the same man—an intellectual who gave his life for his country. Premieres in Amsterdam in fall 2025. Denisova now lives and works in Barcelona, where she is completing two novels: The Hague and Sasha and Her Brain Run to Barcelona and Win—a sharp, autofic- tional tale about a woman, a war, and a city that changes her language and her life. American awards include the 2024 Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding Direction (The Hague [Gaaga]) and the 2024 Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Production of a Play (My Mama and the Full-Scale Invasion). Sasha Denisova was named a world-class figure by The Washington Post, and the play is published in American Theatre Magazine.
Translator -
Director - Kay Martinovich (she/hers) is a Chicago-based director, where she most recently directed Jeff-nominated and critically acclaimed Green Corridors by Natalka Vorozhbyt at Trap Door Theatre. In fall 2024, she directed a staged reading of Green Corridors for IVP and Trap Door. Other credits include: The Police by Sławomir Mrozek in world premiere translation by Joanna Trzeciak for Theatre of the Absurd Festival @Chopin Theatre; God of Carnage by Yasmina Reza @Kane Repertory; Jeff-nominated and Chicago premiere of The Father by Florian Zeller @Remy Bumppo, Deirdre of the Sorrows by John M. Synge @City Lit, and Jeff-nominated Naked by Luigi Pirandello and Jeff-award winning La Bête by David Hirson both @Trap Door. Kay has a long-standing association with Trap Door, having directed several shows, starting with Bremen Freedom. As Associate Artistic Director for Irish Repertory of Chicago, Kay directed the U.S. premiere of By the Bog of Cats by Marina Carr as well as productions of Bailegangaire, Pentecost, The Mai, and Two by Friel from Chekhov. Kay’s work has been seen on many Chicago stages, including Lifeline, Buffalo Theatre Ensemble, Her Story, GreatWorks, MaryArrchie, Live Bait, Circle, Apple Tree, Famous Door, Emerald City, and Theatre Wit, among others. She holds a PhD in Theatre Historiography from the University of Minnesota and MPhil in Irish Theatre from Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland. Kay is Associate Professor and Head of the BFA Acting program at Northern Illinois University, where she teaches Meisner-based acting. Proud member of SDC, the professional directors’ union. Please visit: kaymartinovich.com