Andrew Kushnir’s new play, The Division, currently playing in the Studio at Crow’s Theatre, is both a very personal story and an interrogation of some very uncomfortable aspects of Ukrainian history.  It’s told, in the present, as a letter to Kushnir’s nephew to be read in maybe fifteen years time when, perhaps, it will be easier to divorce history from current events (and then maybe not…)

In 2019 Kushnir’s grandfather; a watchmaker and clock technician for the CPR, died in Montreal.  As tends to happen, aspects of his history previously kept pretty close emerged.  In particular, that as a very young man he had served in what is known to Canadian Ukrainians as “The Division”.  In fact the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Galician).  Like many members of that division Andrew’s grandfather made his way to Canada after the war where Nazis were, by and large, accepted as reliable anti-communists, but that’s a whole other story.

Kushner decides to retrace his grandfather’s steps from a village in Galicia, via Poland to a prison camp in Italy and a resettlement centre for Poles in the UK (he acquires false papers courtesy of a Polish priest) and ultimately to Montreal.  Along the way he meets many people and learns many things; about his grandfather, about The Division and about how the story has been sanitized in Canada to the point where a member of The Division was permitted to address the House of Commons (the so-called “Nazigate”).  And of course he is repeatedly told that now is not the time to dredge up old wounds.  There’s a war on against an enemy of longer standing than the Nazis.

This is all narrated by Daniel Maslany playing Andrew supported by recordings of field interviews and by short scenes in which the rest of the cast (Karl Ang, Ivy Charles, Mariya Khomutova, Alon Nashman) play multiple characters ranging from Ukrainian soldiers then and now, nurses, priests, tour guides, family members and even Justin Trudeau, Pierre Polièvre and Vladimir Putin… it’s a tour de force of versatility even if the accents go seriously awry when it comes to Merseyside!

This isn’t the place to get into all the rights and wrongs.  See the play.  Form your own conclusions.  Ukrainian history is tortuously complicated and full of moral ambiguity.  What we can say about the play is that it’s a very insightful exploration of what it means to be Ukrainian in Canada today.

The Division is punchily written, directed for pace and impact (by Kushner) and, by turns, very funny and very disturbing.  It’s the sort of theatre where time just flies by and the 100 minutes seems over in a flash.  And, in my opinion, for Kushner to “spill his guts” like this is extraordinarily brave.  The run continues until May 24th.

Photo credit: Dahlia Katz