Melbourne Fringe: Steppe

Experiencing Steppe at 707 Operations, it struck me that, for the people of Poland during the Second World War, there was no least worst option.

The Nazis had come from the west, and then the Bolsheviks came from the east. For many, you were going to end up on a train either way. Steppe is the story of the women who were taken east, told from the perspectives of one woman, Kasia, sent to the labour camps of Siberia.

This is a deeply personal, viscerally affecting, and genuinely upsetting production, with the audience literally put in Kasia’s place on the train to Siberia, experiencing her heartbreak at her removal from her family and homeland.