The White Factory

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Production photos by Mark Senior

Associate Set and Costume Design for New Writing | Marylebone Theatre

Directed by Maxim Didenko
Written by Dmitry Glukhovsky
Set & Costume Design by Galya Solodovnikova
Lighting Design by Alex Musgrave
Video Design by Oleg Michailov
Composed by Louis Lebee
Sound Design by Julian Starr
Assistant Directed by Maria Zemlinskaya
Production Management by The Production Office
Produced by Belka Productions & Ekaterina Kashyntseva

HMUA by Judith Maya Abegg
Costume Alterations by Amberley Hunt

Cast: Mark Quarterley, Adrian Schiller, Pearl Chanda, Olivia Bernstone, James Garnon, Matthew Spencer, Lewis Hart, Rachel Barry, Paul Hector Antoine, Leo Franky, Lucas Allermann, Aron Yacobi

Spanning several decades, The White Factory explores the life of Yosef Kaufman, a Holocaust survivor from Lodz, haunted by his wartime experiences as he tries to build a new future in 1960’s Brooklyn.

This heart-wrenching drama of love, endurance, despair and hope follows one man’s journey from the Lodz ghetto of 1940s Poland to ‘sixties America, where the possibility of a new life is tested to the limit by the remnants of his past.

The world premiere of a daring collaboration between Ukrainian, Russian and British creatives, led by writer Dmitry Glukhovsky, and visionary theatre director Maxim Didenko – both of whom are political exiles and vehemently outspoken critics of the war against Ukraine.

The Design for The White Factory had been developed over a number of years but also continued to be devised in the room as the play grew and changed.

The visual journey took us from the 1960s, a clinical factory, through to Łódź, a Jewish town converted into a Nazi factory. It gradually gets drained of colour as the town collapses under the pressure. The White Factory’s pillows, torn open fill the space with black snow. The costumes get drained of colour. Suddenly we get thrown back to the 1960s, a Kafka-esque Court Room and the white cubical space gradually gets reset, showing humanity’s potential to repeat these crimes once more.

Costume in turn had to be dignified. From all the imagery, the care the inhabitants of the ghetto managed to put into their appearance & in turn portrayed their resilience. Meticulous research went into the costuming of these characters authentically, which highlighted their humanity and fallibility against the start set.

3x WINNER – Best Set Design, Best Production, Best Video
Shortlisted for a further 3 Categories & Nominated for a further 2 Categories – The Most Nominations for 2023

Offies 2023

“This small off-West End venue again delivers National Theatre-level production values. Galya Solodovnikova’s agile, sliding set begins pure title-reflecting white, on to which are projected live capture images and motion-capture graphics, before the snowy slopes are sullied by blood and, an indelible visual metaphor, the revealed contents of some pillows. […] It is a tribute to performance, writing and production that the play is received in rapt silence underscored by stifled sobbing.”

Mark Lawson, The Guardian

“The image is taken up in Galya Solodovnikova’s startling white-light geometric, sliding stadium frame with brilliant white interior in which the action takes place.”

Richard Beck, Broadway baby

“Set dazzlingly, hauntingly, in a clinical white box blasted clean with LED one moment, plunged into blackness or a fiery glow the next, the “white factory” refers to a church-turned-workshop where the Elder of the ghetto’s Judenrat attempted to make his community so indispensable in producing  Nazi essentials – from uniform buttons to freshly stuffed pillows – that the Nazis would spare them from Auschwitz. […] extraordinary staging. The icing-white stage box is pure and bright, until blood stains it, until ashes pour onto it. ”

Ismene Brown, The Arts Desk

“Set, a sparse white rectangle, fractures in two. […] The juxtaposition between blind faith and cold fascist evil is stark.”

John Cutler, The Reviews Hub