Winnie Czulinski –
Hearts and flowers are a part of it. But this love story also draws on the deaths and devastated landscapes of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, plus the pandemic that gripped the world with illness and isolation.
Closed doors, cultural differences, desperate measures. A romance, a pregnancy, a wedding. Even the bride’s mother living and touring with the young husband and wife. And much laughter.
The play reflecting this story, through the real-life couple of Métis-Canadian playwright Matthew MacKenzie and Ukrainian actor Mariya Khomutova, has captivated Canada. In 2023, First Métis Man of Odesa, a triple Dora Mavor Moore award-winner, played to appreciative audiences in 96 performances and six cities, with rave reviews.
The married duo, who now live in Cabbagetown, met while MacKenzie was engaged in workshops and theatre research in Kyiv, Ukraine, in 2018. English-speaking hired actor Khomutova noted that this accomplished theatre person was “my size and height, often silent, observed a lot, and not out to make an impression.”
Remotely, their friendship deepened to romance. Khomutova visited him in Toronto. MacKenzie met her parents in Odesa, and left Ukraine in March 2020. “We were in our own world, our own little bubble,” says Khomutova.
With the pandemic separating them, Khomutova found she was pregnant. MacKenzie managed to get back to Odesa to wed her, to the tune of a socially distanced klezmer band. Now the wife of a Canadian citizen, Khomutova had the baby in Edmonton, MacKenzie’s home town.
They came back to Toronto, but wanted to return to Ukraine to introduce young Ivan to his grandparents. Then Russia invaded.
“As a playwright, I am always mining my life and the lives of people I encounter for material,” says MacKenzie. “I definitely had the thought (for this play) on my wild Covid flight to Odesa.” Following the invasion of Ukraine, “Our story took a turn, and we had the urgent desire to share with people the effects of the war on our lives and our family.”
MacKenzie and Khomutova faced challenges in writing and staging their real-life story. MacKenzie was not an actor, while Khomutova, though a seasoned performer, struggled with war-survivor’s guilt. “I [had] to make a character of myself, ‘Masha,’ to create a little bit of distance. Otherwise, if I am going through that as myself every evening, I will go crazy.”
The stage production interweaves a world of war and violence with scenes of lightness and laughter. From the play:
Masha to Matthew: “My parents love you!”
Matthew: “Your mother says I look like (American actor) Paul Giammati, and your father says I’m not an alcoholic.”
Masha: “These are huge compliments!”
Khomutova’s parents, who also praised MacKenzie’s large hands, call him “a hero of our time.” The play itself deeply affects audiences, especially those with a Ukrainian connection.
“This show is very emotional and honest,” Khomutova says. “You can’t lie with acting techniques, but have to be very sincere in every moment. It requires such energy.”
A world away from Ukraine’s war is Cabbagetown, which Khomutova fell in love with on her first visit here – parks, cafes, a kid-friendly “feeling of community that was so strong in a huge city.”
Her husband, she says, surprises her every day with “millions of ideas he has in his head, whether about theatre or our life or about going to travel somewhere. I always dreamt to have someone like that, though I didn’t imagine the realistic and logistics part of it.”
MacKenzie loves how Khomutova, “deeply kind, patient and gentle,” uniquely interacts with the world. “When we were separated during the pandemic, it felt like a romance of old, writing Masha poetry and pining for her as we waited for travel bans to be lifted.”
Covid-19 isolated everyone, MacKenzie reflects, and now multiple world conflicts increasingly separate people into different camps. The couple’s home includes cultural and language differences, and a Métis-Ukrainian son.
“I think that people respond positively to our love story because it is celebrating (or laughing at) difference,” says MacKenzie. “At the same time, it’s showing people the mad contradictions in our lives that have led Masha and I to have a very unusual story, and a very special love.”
First Métis Man of Odesa will be at Soulpepper Theatre in May 2024.
https://www.soulpepper.ca/ performances/firstmetisman
Punctuate Theatre (production co): https://www.punctuatetheatre.com/
Photos courtesy Alexis McKeown
