First Métis Man of Odesa returns to the stage in Calgary
Mariya Khomutova and Matthew MacKenzie perform in First Métis Man of Odesa, the autobiographical play they co-wrote about their relationship between Ukraine and Canada.
Photo credit: Alexis McKeown / Punctuate! Theatre
Matthew MacKenzie and Mariya Khomutova met at a theatre workshop in Kyiv while MacKenzie was working as dramaturge on Lianna Makuch’s Canadian play Barvinok.
MacKenzie, a playwright from amiskwacîwâskahikan/Edmonton and citizen of the Métis Nation of Alberta, was part of the Canadian team developing the work in Ukraine. Khomutova, an Odesa-raised Ukrainian actor who had studied theatre from the age of 12 and graduated from Kyiv National Theatre University in 2012, participated in the workshop.
They are now married, have a son, Ivan, and are back onstage together telling the story of what happened after they met. Their autobiographical play, First Métis Man of Odesa, is running at Theatre Calgary’s Martha Cohen Theatre through Sept. 27, opening the company’s 2026–27 season and beginning another national tour for Edmonton-based Punctuate! Theatre.
The play follows a relationship that developed across Canada and Ukraine and then ran into events neither writer could have anticipated when they met. MacKenzie and Khomutova continued their relationship across the distance between the two countries, married and became parents during the COVID-19 pandemic. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 then changed both their family’s circumstances and the work MacKenzie had already begun writing about them.
An earlier First Métis Man of Odesa, written by MacKenzie, was produced as an audio drama for Factory Theatre in 2021. Khomutova has also described the first incarnation of the story as a roughly 20-minute romantic piece that ended with Ivan’s birth.
After Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022, MacKenzie believed their story was unfinished and asked Khomutova to help him write what came next. Khomutova told Ludwig Van Toronto in 2024 that she initially resisted. She was in Canada while relatives and friends remained in Ukraine, and MacKenzie suggested that she keep a diary.
“I shared the diary with Matt and he structured the material into the second half of the play,” Khomutova said.
The result made Khomutova a co-writer as well as a performer in a work that now dealt directly with her family and country. MacKenzie and Khomutova perform versions of themselves in First Métis Man of Odesa, under Makuch’s direction.
The current production team includes Daniela Masellis on production design, Amelia Scott on projection design, Daraba as composer, Aaron Macri on sound design, Krista Lin as choreographer and Matt McGeachy as dramaturg. Krista Leddy and Maria Nelson contributed beadwork, with Leddy also credited in the Theatre Calgary production as “Métis Auntie at Large.”
MacKenzie’s Métis identity and Khomutova’s Ukrainian experience are part of the autobiographical material from which the play developed. MacKenzie’s Métis identity is part of his own life and work, while Khomutova’s experience of Ukraine before and after the invasion became material she eventually helped bring to the stage.
The production has travelled extensively across Canada. Western Canada Theatre presented it in Kamloops from March 16 to 25, 2023, followed by The Theatre Centre in Toronto from March 30 to April 8. It then went to Edmonton’s Citadel Theatre and Vancouver’s The Cultch that spring, followed by engagements in Saskatoon and Winnipeg later in 2023. The tour continued in 2024 through Barrie, Soulpepper Theatre in Toronto and the National Arts Centre in Ottawa.
The Toronto production received five nominations in the Independent Theatre Division of the 2023 Dora Mavor Moore Awards and won three: Outstanding Production for Punctuate! Theatre in association with The Theatre Centre, Outstanding New Play for MacKenzie and Khomutova and Outstanding Direction for Makuch.
The script subsequently moved into print. Playwrights Canada Press published First Métis Man of Odesa in October 2024, with a foreword by Makuch, and a two-part audio adaptation of the expanded work was released through PlayME that year.
In May 2024, during the Soulpepper engagement in Toronto, Khomutova said the production would be retired after its Toronto and Ottawa performances.
Two years later, Punctuate! has brought the production back to the stage. Theatre Calgary is presenting it from Sept. 8 to 27, with MacKenzie and Khomutova again performing and Makuch directing, as the opening production in a 2026–27 season organized by artistic director Stafford Arima around different forms of family.
Calgary also launches what Punctuate! is calling a new national tour. The company has announced a March 18–21, 2027 engagement at LSPU Hall in St. John’s, with additional tour dates still to come.
The first incarnation of First Métis Man of Odesa ended with Ivan’s birth. Russia’s full-scale invasion led MacKenzie and Khomutova to continue writing it, and in 2024 Khomutova said they were preparing to retire the production. On Sept. 27, they will instead close its Calgary engagement with another Canadian tour underway.
