i am root | Adelaide Fringe 2022 review

A play about the Ukrainian diaspora, I Am Root is about finding your place in a new country while keeping true to your origins.

I Am Root

i am root

Theatre and Physical Theatre

Rating: ****

The Breakout at The Mill

Until March 6

By a strange coincidence a play about the Ukrainian diaspora is playing on the Fringe.

Olenka Toroshenko is passionate about her country of origin, and could not let the performance end without a passionate plea for help.

I Am Root is about people finding their place in a new country while keeping true to their origins – in her case, a second generation Ukrainian born in Canada, which has the third biggest Ukrainian population in the world after Ukraine and Russia.

Growing up in Alberta she went through the mill of language, dance, song that we all hope might keep our cultural identity. And Toroshenko sings and dances and confidently acts out some of the ways her culture intersects, first with Canada, and now with Australia, her home for more than three years.

Most important are family gatherings and food prepared there. The beetroot and its deep-coloured borscht, a soup, is at its heart. Her hands are symbolically stained blood-red from freshly cut beetroot as part of this show. We come away wiser about Ukraine and about the dilemmas a proud and old culture presents in a strange land.

After the show, Toroshenko said it did not feel right to perform without acknowledging the war in Ukraine, where she has visited and has friends.

“The Ukraine National Anthem has a line ‘We shall lay down our bodies and souls for freedom’. That is happening now,” she said.