In wartime Ukraine, an all-female King Lear after actors were called to the front lines

The 43-year-old Ukrainian actress took to the stage wearing a black leather jacket and with a moustache painted on her face. “We were rehearsing Shakespeare’s King Lear when suddenly our men were taken to the front,” said the theatre’s 52-year-old director, Roman Pokrovskyi. “We only had the female part of the troupe left.

So we thought, ‘Well, if men played women in Shakespeare’s times, why not give it a try?’” The efforts of the theatre in Chernihiv, the capital of a region that borders Russia and Belarus, reflect a broader reality in Ukraine where women are stepping into roles once dominated by men, sustaining not just their industries but the spirit of national resistance..