Andrei Kureichik

The play, according to Lucy Ash of the BBC, “is a series of intersecting monologues that capture the unfolding drama in the capital of Minsk. Some of the script is imagined, some taken from political speeches and voices overheard in the streets.” Kureichik has noted that the play is based, in part, on actual statements made by Lukashenko (known as Oldster in the play) and his political rival Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya (Novice in the play), among others. On the Lukashenko character, Kureichik said, “I tried to understand him as well. I know his psychology. He thought people would love him forever. But it doesn’t work anymore.” Five other characters present an overview of Belarusian society:

Mentor, an ageing teacher who believes in “law and order” and helps guarantee Lukashenko's reelections every four years by falsifying results;
Corpse, an excitable soccer fan who is sick of living under the same president his entire life and who is based, in part, on Alexander Taraikovsky, the first protester to die in the nascent Belarusian revolution
Raptor, a storm trooper who trained during the Euromaidan Revolution in Ukraine and is now in Belarus to put down rebellions there
Cheerful, a high-spirited, loving young woman, based loosely on the musician and political activist Maria Kalesnikava, who believes the Universe sends her good vibes, and whose sister is to marry the storm trooper
Youth, Lukashenko's teenaged son Nikolai (Kolya for short), who is being groomed for the presidency but would prefer to play internet games.
The lives of each of these individuals—with the possible exception of Kolya, for his debt to destiny is yet to be paid—are impacted tragically by Lukashenko's decision to crush the revolution with violence and torture.

Andrei Kureichik’s An Ocean Away is a deeply human, rhythm-verbatim drama that captures with profound empathy the emotional toll and resilience experienced by Ukrainian-Americans amidst the unjust and devastating Russia-Ukraine war. Built from intimate, real-life testimonies, this extraordinary play weaves together voices that echo with pain, love, courage, and hope, crafting a powerful narrative on identity, displacement, and survival. In An Ocean Away, Kureichik has crafted a vital, moving, and deeply poetic portrayal of human endurance and the incredible courage of Ukrainians facing unimaginable adversity. The play powerfully advocates for empathy and action, urging audiences to support Ukraine and honor the resilience and bravery of its people, while celebrating the profound, enduring human spirit that survives even amidst the darkness of our time.

In August 2021 Kureichik completed a follow-up play to Insulted. Belarus titled Voices of the New Belarus. This verbatim piece offered unedited voices of 16 individuals who had been arrested, tortured or murdered in the wake of the August 2020 revolution. (A production of the play in Legnice, Poland, featured an additional four characters at the request of the theater.) Kureichik explains: “I considered it important to record the crimes of the Lukashenko regime in documentary form. So that no one could say later that what was done to these people was someone’s imagination.”
Aside from a short, explanatory introduction by Kureichik, all the texts in the play are drawn from public sources and include interviews, published letters, essays, public statements, or court documents. In the first version of the play 14 voices were offered as monologues, two were combined in a dialogue.

THE WHITE PLAGUE 2035
A Satirical Tragicomedy by Andrei Kureichik
In a gripping blend of biting satire and haunting prophecy, The White Plague catapults us into the near future—where the ghosts of totalitarianism return, cloaked in new ideologies and armed with digital disinformation. In this bold reimagining of Karel Čapek’s visionary work, acclaimed playwright Andrei Kureichik (Insulted Belarus, The Empty Shell of War) delivers a darkly comic and chilling vision of 21st-century Europe on the brink. Putin is gone, discarded as weak. In his place rises Marshal Tretyak, a brutal autocrat resurrecting imperial dreams of a Eurasian Empire. As war looms and propaganda reigns, a mysterious pandemic sweeps the globe—targeting the elderly in a ruthless culling known as the White Plague. Only one person holds the key to a cure: Dr. Gallen, a defector from the liberal West. Kureichik’s White Plague is a razor-sharp tragicomedy that dissects modern authoritarianism, generational rifts, and the collapse of global solidarity. In a world plagued by isolationism, disinformation, and resurgent imperialism, can humanism survive? A bold, timely, and unforgettable theatrical reading.

Andrei Kureichik’s adaptation of A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings, inspired by Gabriel García Márquez, masterfully intertwines poetic beauty with profound symbolism, evoking the delicate yet haunting fragility of human existence. Set in the rain-drenched courtyard of Pelayo and Elisenda, the play unfolds as a mysterious old man with massive wings falls from the heavens, igniting wonder, fear, and greed among villagers.

Poetically rich, the narrative thrives on dream-like imagery: relentless rains signaling despair, crabs multiplying ominously, and wings both burdening and liberating. The old man, embodying poetic ambiguity, speaks in an indecipherable tongue, representing misunderstood divinity, suffering, and profound alienation.

Symbolism pervades the narrative. Wings suggest transcendence, freedom, and otherworldliness, yet their heaviness grounds the old man in harsh reality, capturing humanity’s ambivalence towards the sacred. The neighbors’ response—exploitation and spectacle—highlights society’s tendency to commodify miracles, preferring sensationalism over compassion. The juxtaposition between the angel and the grotesque Spider Woman symbolizes humanity’s superficial attraction to novelty over spiritual depth.

Kureichik’s aesthetics blend magical realism and absurdist humor, creating a whimsical yet unsettling atmosphere. Scenes of pilgrims exploiting the angel’s suffering for personal miracles contrast starkly with fleeting poetic moments, such as the sudden, miraculous snowfall, evoking a transient beauty against human folly.

At its core, the play champions humanism through the evolving empathy of Pelayo’s family, particularly their son, whose innocent curiosity and compassion contrast with adult cynicism. The old man’s silent endurance and ultimate liberation embody a profound dignity and resilience. His eventual flight symbolizes hope—an ascension not just of the angel, but also an upliftment of human consciousness, suggesting redemption lies in recognizing our shared vulnerability and dignity.

Kureichik’s adaptation stands as a powerful, poetic meditation on humanity’s complexity, vulnerability, and persistent capacity for wonder amid life’s absurdities and cruelties.

Andrei Kureichik’s The Empty Shell of War is a gripping exploration of the psychological scars left by war and the enduring strength of the human spirit. Centered on the harrowing journey of a young Jewish girl from a small Shtetl, this powerful monodrama takes audiences through her extraordinary struggle to survive amidst unimaginable horrors and moments of unexpected grace. Based on extensive interviews with Holocaust survivors from Eastern Poland, Belarus, and Northern Lithuania, preserved in the Fortunoff Archives at Yale University, every moment and revelation in the play is grounded in truth and document. Each event depicted is drawn from the lived experiences of those who endured the war in Belarus, bringing an authenticity that resonates deeply. A Tour De Force for any actress, “The Empty Shell of War” demands the full spectrum of emotional range and transformation, presenting profound challenges and rewarding depths.

FRESHMEN is a bold, emotionally charged, and darkly comedic exploration of Gen Z identity, anxiety, and rebellion. Set in the raw and restless atmosphere of a high school in post-Soviet Belarus, the play captures the vertigo of adolescence with a strikingly contemporary voice. At its heart is a tight-knit trio—Eva, Vika, and Nikita—whose rites of passage into adulthood unfold amidst political decay, generational silence, and hormonal chaos.

Eva, the sensitive yet ironic narrator, navigates a world where teenage insecurities meet the blunt force of social injustice and family trauma. Her secret love for Vika pulses through the play like a current—intimate, unspoken, and ultimately transformative. Vika, a self-styled rebel, wears cynicism like armor, but beneath it hides vulnerability and confusion. Nikita, the awkward but endearing outsider, longs to break through his emotional shell and find belonging, even if it means testing the limits of friendship and desire.

The play’s dialogue is electric—filled with absurd humor, digital slang, and bitter truths. The characters argue about their bodies, their futures, and whether love is just another lie sold by grown-ups. Through chaotic school lessons, empty classrooms, and night-time confessions, FRESHMEN builds a landscape of youthful fragmentation, where every decision feels like a revolution—or a catastrophe.

Yet amid the sarcasm and surface bravado lies a deeply human story of first love: confusing, tender, and aching. The bond between Eva and Vika is rendered with painful honesty—uncertain in its language, but clear in its emotional stakes. It is a queer love story born in a place where queerness cannot be named, let alone accepted. Their conflict becomes the emotional core of the play: how to love in a world that teaches you to be ashamed of it?

Kureichik’s razor-sharp storytelling reveals not only the fury and brilliance of a new generation, but also the quiet courage it takes to feel everything—desire, grief, hope—when you’re just seventeen. FRESHMEN is a play that dares to speak teenage truth in a world that would rather not hear it.

Insulted. Planet. is a genre-defying cosmic drama by Andrei Kureichik that boldly blends science fiction, intense psychological exploration, and contemporary geopolitical tensions into a provocative theatrical experience. Set aboard the New World International Space Station, this ambitious mission is humanity’s grand attempt to confront and conquer its eternal adversaries: speed, time, and, most dauntingly, distance. At the heart of this groundbreaking voyage is an unprecedented scientific experiment: the conception and birth of the first child in space, intended as a symbolic leap toward interstellar travel and human unity.

However, as astronauts from Finland, Russia, Ukraine, Spain, Brazil, and the United States embark on their shared quest, the promise of international cooperation quickly fractures under the weight of earthbound animosities and personal conflicts. Tensions escalate sharply when news reaches the crew of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, turning their space capsule into a microcosm of global hostility. The mission, designed to symbolize peaceful collaboration, descends into chaos, mistrust, and even sabotage.

Within the isolated confines of the space station, intimate personal dramas unfold. Finnish astronauts Jukka and Hannele, tasked with bringing forth this cosmic child, confront their deteriorating relationship and existential doubts, exacerbated by the claustrophobic pressures of their isolated environment. Emotional alliances shift dramatically when Hannele and Luna, the mission’s Spanish-Brazilian doctor, form a romantic connection, further complicating the group’s fragile equilibrium.

Andrei Kureichik masterfully juxtaposes personal intimacy with planetary-scale conflict, weaving threads of deep philosophical reflection with harsh realities of war and political division. The characters’ interactions—ranging from tender, poignant moments to explosive confrontations—reveal deeper truths about human nature, vulnerability, and resilience. As oxygen levels deplete mysteriously aboard the station, survival itself becomes uncertain, forcing the astronauts into heart-wrenching moral dilemmas and desperate choices.

Insulted. Planet. is ultimately an exploration of the profound distances that separate humanity, not just spatially but emotionally, politically, and morally. It confronts audiences with the uncomfortable yet essential question of whether humanity can bridge these chasms or remain doomed to repeat cycles of conflict and misunderstanding. With an inventive blend of cosmic scale and intensely personal stakes, Kureichik offers a compelling vision of both the peril and potential of our shared human experience.

Three Giselles is a luminous, time-bending epic chronicling the life of one woman—Giselle Coupesse—across six decades of war, dislocation, and endurance. Based on a true story and winner of the Nikolay Kolyada “Eurasia” International Plays Competition, the play is an intimate yet sweeping testament to the quiet heroism of women across history. Told in three overlapping timelines—“Young Giselle” (1940s Paris), “Mature Giselle” (1950s Soviet Belarus), and “Old Giselle” (1990s post-Soviet countryside)—the play charts Giselle’s transformation from a spirited Parisian teenager in love with ideals and perfume to a milkmaid in a crumbling Soviet collective farm, and finally to a fragile pensioner reckoning with her ghosts and faded chances.

At its core is Giselle herself—a character of breathtaking emotional complexity. She is not a heroine in the traditional sense, but a survivor: passionate, romantic, defiant, and unbearably human. Her choices—falling in love with a communist, then a Belarusian soldier; enduring domestic violence with stoic grace; sacrificing her past to protect her child—mark the wounds of 20th-century history etched on a single female body. Her blue perfume bottle and the symbolic blue lightbulb she carries through time become emblems of memory, lost desire, and an identity she never fully relinquished.

The structure of Three Giselles is mosaic and choral—one life fractured into three selves, echoing across eras. The shifting actors between timelines underscore the recurrence of trauma, the erosion of freedom, and the universality of longing. Kureichik’s dramaturgy weds tender realism with poignant surrealism, culminating in a final image of the three Giselles—three women, one soul—holding glowing bulbs in a world grown dim.

This is not just a play about war, love, or ideology. It is a play about dignity in powerlessness. About the female body as a battlefield. About memory as resistance. And above all, it is a love letter to the invisible heroines of history—women who survived, not for glory, but for the sake of living.

INSULTED. Russia.A Visionary Insight into Russia’s Path to Conflict

In INSULTED. Russia., playwright Andrei Kureichik brilliantly anticipates the tragic trajectory that would culminate in the Russian-Ukrainian war, capturing the simmering tensions and contradictions of Russia’s internal landscape long before the conflict erupted into global headlines. Written with prescient acuity in 2017, this uncensored drama illuminates the deep-seated grievances, contradictions, and ideological fractures that would later explode into geopolitical catastrophe.

Through a mosaic of vivid characters representing different strata of Russian society—the Orthodox Believer, Liberal, Head Honcho, Girl from Afar, Gender Outlaw, Man from the Sticks, and Woman from the Caucasus—Kureichik maps the complex fault lines running through contemporary Russia. Each character embodies distinct worldviews, values, and grievances, forming an incisive portrait of a nation increasingly divided, desperate, and disillusioned.

The Orthodox Believer embodies Russia's deeply rooted nationalism and religious fervor, believing fiercely in a divinely ordained Russian destiny. Contrasting starkly, the Liberal advocates passionately for human rights, democratic freedoms, and integration into the global community, even as they sense an imminent threat to their ideals. The Gender Outlaw wrestles with identity and acceptance amidst an increasingly intolerant society, symbolizing the internal conflict of Russia's marginalized communities.

The Head Honcho chillingly foreshadows future aggression, driven by ruthless pragmatism and strategic expansionism, rationalizing harsh methods in defense of perceived historical interests. Meanwhile, the Man from the Sticks offers a raw, unfiltered voice of resentment from Russia's neglected regions, suffering economically and socially. The Girl from Afar embodies the youthful desire for a better life, tragically caught between aspirations and harsh realities in a region destined to become a warzone. Lastly, the Woman from the Caucasus powerfully articulates grievances stemming from ethnic conflicts and historical injustices, highlighting regional tensions simmering beneath the surface.

Blending elements of verbatim theater with fictional narrative, INSULTED. Russia. dramatizes the incremental buildup of hostilities, underscoring how systemic issues—corruption, propaganda, economic disparity, identity crises, and ethnic tensions—gradually intertwine, creating conditions ripe for violent conflict.

Andrei Kureichik's extraordinary foresight not only predicts the eventual escalation of these internal conflicts into full-blown war but also explores the underlying psychology and dynamics that make such outcomes almost inevitable. Provocative, unsettling, and insightful, INSULTED. Russia. is both a remarkable testament to the power of drama as a form of socio-political prophecy and a passionate call for understanding and vigilance in the face of rising authoritarianism and nationalism.

Ultimately, the play serves as a stark warning and a profound reflection on the price societies pay when grievances go unheard, conflicts unresolved, and humanity’s shared values eclipsed by the darkest impulses of power.