Clara Read and Jade Williams in Ukraine Unbroken [Tristram Kenton]

IT’S a five-star concept: a quintet of plays about modern Ukraine, charting the years from the 2014 Maidan protests to Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022 and beyond.

Director Nicholas Kent has assembled stellar writers and a versatile ensemble, yet these mini-dramas vary in ambition and execution.

In Jonathan Myerson’s Always, a Ukrainian politician (David Michaels) and his wife (Sally Giles) are held hostage in their hotel overlooking the 2014 pro-European protests in Maidan Square, where their son is demonstrating. With so much exposition to deliver in limited time, the piece occasionally slips into didacticism.

David Edgar’s darkly comic Five Day War involves a government-in-waiting as three hopefuls (Daniel Betts, Giles and Michaels) undergo a five-day training led by a sinister instructor, Viktor (Ian Bonar).

The second half contains stronger work with Natalka Vorozhbit’s Three Mates – translated by Sasha Dugdale and directed by Victoria Gartner – a standout.

Vorozhbit explores the guilt of a young man (Bonar) who has dodged conscription and reflects on the diverging paths of his friends.

David Greig’s Wretched Things highlights the foreign recruits Russia routinely sends to the front, though the scenario stretches credibility: three Ukrainian troops (Betts, Bonar and Michaels) discover a wounded North Korean soldier and must decide whether to risk their lives to save him.

Cat Goscovitch’s Taken exposes the harrowing reality of the 20,000 Ukrainian children abducted by Russia, re-educated and adopted. We follow one mother, Anna (Jade Williams), in her desperate attempt to bring home her 12-year-old daughter, Lilya (Clara Read).

Mariia Petrovska performs live music on the bandura, sings and threads the themes together.

Despite some flaws, Ukraine Unbroken offers a poignant, illuminating mosaic of people’s resilience in defiance of tyranny.

Until March 28
Arcolatheatre.com