Two women and a man are in a living room in The Ukraine. The women talk as if the man is, and is not, there with them. Because, it quickly emerges, he is dead, of a heart attack a few days previously. So the conversations he has with them are both imaginary and real. The two women are, were, his wife and (possibly) daughter. The latter mourns him, the former moans about him and the inadequate life he led, his selfishness at leaving them so suddenly.
The action moves on a year, to Sasha's graveside and the tune has changed, the widow now romanticising her past relationship and remembering only the good times. These illusions will be shattered by the dead man coming back to tell her he wants to return to the living in order to go off and fight in the war with Russia. Neither woman is impressed that his sole reason for wanting to return has nothing to do with his family.
The live Sasha had two main roles in life - drunk and soldier. Neither of them of much use to the women in his life. He was good at taking the rubbish out - but they can easily do that for themselves. His death wasn't quite the disaster for them as they'd first imagined, and the best of his presence is able to remain in their imaginations.
It's the role of Katya, the widow/mother, who must drive most of the plot, and Jill Riddiford didn't always bring the conviction required, with a performance that was more sound than inspired. In contrast Paul Cunningham's Sasha lit up the room and provided a brooding background presence watching over the two women. There wasn't much comedy, unsurprising given the subject, but some good laughs were to be had on presence of a dead man in the conversation. An enjoyable fifty minutes that had an interesting message.
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