In March of 2022, three weeks after invading Ukraine, Russian forces bombed the shelter housed in the Donetsk Regional Academic Drama Theater, in the city of Mariupol. This book tells the story of the group of ordinary Ukrainians who built that shelter, giving succor to thousands of their countrypeople, before it was destroyed.
Enthralling ... Mr. Verini’s aim is a vital one: He seeks to go beyond the war crime to give shape and dimension to the everyday Ukrainians fated to become atrocity statistics at the theater ... Takes great care to convey to readers how the denizens of the theater cut across social, economic and cultural classes ... If, at times, the narrative structure sags and the character portraits blur, it’s in service to the immensity of hope and defiance extinguished by the airstrike.
Immersive ... This panorama of fearful, resilient life is superbly conjured by Verini from interviews with the refugees ... At once spare and precisely detailed. Readers should not be put off by the publisher’s subtitle, 'Courage and Survival in the Defining Atrocity of the Ukraine War,' which is misguided on many levels; among other things, the war is ongoing.
A grim reminder that war is hell, especially for civilians caught in the crossfire, The Theater is also an invaluable chronicle of an event that should not be forgotten.
