Lesya Ukrainka National Theatre - Translations

Translations, based on Brian Friel's 1980 Irish masterpiece, is set in 1833 in a small Gaelic-speaking village, where British army engineers arrive to remap the land and translate local place names into English as an act of colonial appropriation disguised as bureaucratic procedure. Premiered in Kyiv in October 2022, the production was itself an act of defiance, staged at the height of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

RocknLight designed atmospheric video projections that gave physical form to the play's core tension: the dual reality of a living village and the cold, clinical map being superimposed upon it. Shifting landscapes, abstract cartographic grids, and dissolving place names moved across the stage, making visible the invisible violence of cultural erasure. The projections did not merely illustrate the story - they were the story, turning the stage into a contested territory.

In June 2023, the production travelled to the Abbey Theatre in Dublin - Ireland's national theatre and the birthplace of Friel's play - where it was performed in Ukrainian with English subtitles. The resonance between Friel's Ireland and present-day Ukraine was unmistakable, and the production received a standing ovation. Reviewed with four stars by the Irish Times, Translations became one of the most politically charged and emotionally powerful theatrical events of the year.