After a long hour, little is learned by the end of this well-meaning yet uncomfortable production, a chorus of voices of 21 (or so) female refugees from Ukraine, Belorussia and Poland.

With a focus on the mother figure (motherland, possibly), these “mothers and their children” come together to induce empathy with songs somehow related to their memories and experiences. But the choice of infantile, political and accusatory songs (most new) sidesteps tradition, personal information or actual context about their lives, then or now. The women introduce themselves, but only near the end with a seconds-long anecdote. Repetition in lyrics suggests learning by rote: it is hard work to engage. 

While the input of the participants seems hazy, crystal clear is the driving force of Polish director and singer Marta Górnicka who energetically conducts from the centre of the audience. It is perhaps she who requires the audience to wait behind closed doors until the last minute, file in in silence (impossible), and take our seats; in doing so, delaying the performance. Perhaps she too has influenced the theme of abandonment, not of refugees forced to leave their homes, but of Europe allegedly making excuses not to help, of Europeans scrolling past horrific images to the cat gifs beneath. The audience, packing the Lliure, look on, bemused. 

It’s a far cry (though a cry certainly) from 20 days in Mariupol the Oscar-winning documentary film directed by Ukrainian journalist Mstyslav Chernov. The film devastates with a juxtapose of images and understated narration: it is a universal story of war that asks nothing and everything of its viewers. 

Here a chorus of mothers, clad in grey, seems stylised. They look out without letting us in, arranging themselves in regimental patterns. According to the promotional material (written in enormous red letters on Górnicka’s website), the show offers us “the opportunity to imagine the unimaginable” and to “heal through community”. Yet the tone is not in sync with the content or intention.