On 23 August at 17:00, a performance walk along the Vershynka river, the public presentation of The Inferior Play, a performative project by director and performer Marichka Havrysh. Free entry with prior registration.
Bentegy Theatre invites you to “The Game on Vershynka”, a performance walk along the Vershynka river in Chokolivka. It is a shared adventure in the open air where guests become co-creators: between audience and performers lies a whole spectrum, and each guest sets their own degree of participation.
A river people overlook
Vershynka is a small river in Chokolivka, much of it now hidden in a culvert. In everyday life it reads more like a ditch or a random detail of the landscape, and passers-by often walk right past it. The project team invites people to see this “invisible” part of Kyiv anew, through play.
The game aims to save the river from decline and oblivion by drawing residents’ attention to it. For the guests, it opens a new way of relating to space, to the people around them and to their own feelings.
What happens
Participants walk a playful route along the water together, bringing this stretch to life with presence, laughter and movement, and step by step remembering what it feels like to play outdoors: to cross the threshold of shyness and feel free among friends and new acquaintances. The event includes interaction with water. Anyone can join, with any experience: everyone chooses how actively to play.
About the project
The Inferior Play is a performative project by Marichka Havrysh that explores play as a way of being present with one another, interacting and creating shared experience. We turn to play when we are searching for knowledge, when a community holds equality, freedom and trust. Until now the project’s work and open interim games took place in a rehearsal room. “The Game on Vershynka” takes the research into the city for the first time.
Team: concept, director and performer Marichka Havrysh; set designer Yeva Zhukaliuk; performers Roman Rohoza, Anastasiia Lysenok, Olia Halytska, Viktoriia Tsiluiko.
“I got to know the Vershynka river in Chokolivka, my home district, very closely. I want to introduce others to it and bring it to life with presence, laughter, running and play. I want us to remember what it is like to play outdoors,” says Marichka Havrysh, author and performer of the project.
Practical information
- Date and time: 23 August 2026, 17:00
- Meeting point: 3 Kerchenska St, Kyiv (Chokolivka)
- Duration: approx. 1.5–2 hours
- Entry: free, with prior registration; places are limited
The format involves physical activity: the route crosses uneven ground, with long walking and interaction with water. Comfortable clothes for the weather, closed shoes, water and mosquito repellent are recommended.
About Per Forma
The project is supported by the Per Forma grant programme run by Kyiv Contemporary Music Days with the support of Performing Arts Fund NL and the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science of the Netherlands, aimed at developing the performing arts sector in Ukraine.
Accreditation for filming and interviews with the author is available on request in advance.
