PAUL BaRGETTO and michael Rubenfeld
Performance Date & Time
June 16th at 8pm
JACK, The Adam Mickiewicz Institute, Polish Cultural Institute NY, Fundacja Teatru Trans-Atlantyk, and FestivALT
present
FOR ONE NIGHT ONLY
IF I HAD A GUN, I’D TAKE THEM ALL DOWN
If I Had a Gun, I’d Take Them All Down is a gripping multimedia solo work written by Ukrainian playwright and activist Piotr Armianovski, directed by Paul Bargetto, and created in collaboration with performer Michael Rubenfeld. The production confronts the long history of Russian oppression in Ukraine through a calculated collision of personal testimony, political history, and live performance. The piece unfolds as an intimate, unflinching walk through contemporary wartime Kyiv—examining both the physical architecture of a city under siege and a psychological landscape of memory, resistance, and survival.
The narrative mirrors two distinct timelines: the history of Dmitry Bogrov, the anarchist who assassinated Russian Prime Minister Piotr Stolypin at the Kyiv Opera House in 1911, and the modern narration of Armianovski himself. On stage, Rubenfeld retraces Armianovski’s and Bogrov’s steps through the capital, moving physically across a space transformed by Armianovski’s documentary video projections, which function as a living, cinematic archive.
Enveloped in an immersive soundscape and original composition by Natan Kryszk, the production establishes a multi-sensory environment where acoustic and visual textures evoke collective memory. For New York audiences, the play also represents a bridging of eras for Bargetto, who developed the piece alongside Rubenfeld in Poland after more than a decade away from the city's independent theater (where he previously founded East River Commedia and directed the undergroundzero festival). Through its seamless fusion of live staging, documentary cinema, and atmospheric sound and music, the stage becomes a volatile meeting point between two distinct realities: the relative safety of an American theater and a city living under the immediate shadow of war.
Created by Paul Bargetto & Michael Rubenfeld
Text and Video by Piotr Armianovski
Directed by Paul Bargetto
Performed by Michael Rubenfeld
Sound Design/Composition by Natan Kryszk
Dramaturgy by Paul Bargetto & Michael Rubenfeld
About the ArtistS
Piotr Armianovski is a Ukrainian multimedia artist working across documentary film, performance, and video art. Trained in both computer science and contemporary performance, Armianovski brings a precise, observational sensibility to deeply human subjects—memory, displacement, and the social fabric of everyday life in Ukraine.
Raised in Donetsk and later based in Kyiv, Armianovski’s work is shaped by the rupture of war and the loss of his home city. His films and performances examine how individuals navigate political upheaval, trauma, and the shifting meanings of “home.” His acclaimed works, including Me and Mariupol and A Balance of Sadness and Joy, blend personal testimony with documentary realism, creating intimate portraits of places and people caught between destruction and resilience.
Armianovski has exhibited widely, including a 2023 solo exhibition History of Relations at the PinchukArtCentre, and has participated in major performance and video art programs across Ukraine and Europe. He is a recipient of the MUHi Special Prize for emerging Ukrainian artists and the Gaude Polonia scholarship from Poland’s Ministry of Culture. Today, Armianovski continues to use the body, the camera, and multimedia forms to ask how personal stories survive in times of collective crisis.
Paul Bargetto is an international theater director, dramaturg, and festival producer based in Warsaw, Poland. He is the President and Founder of Fundacja Teatru Trans-Atlantyk, an independent arts organization producing original performances, cultural research, digital media, and international collaborations. Before relocating to Europe, Bargetto spent over a decade as a contributor to the New York City independent theater community, where he founded East River Commedia (1998–2010), co-founded the League of Independent Theater, and directed the undergroundzero festival (2007–2014) across venues such as PS 122, Collective:Unconscious, and The Living Theatre.
Since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Bargetto has focused his European practice on collaborating directly with Ukrainian theater and dance makers on humanitarian and artistic initiatives. This production marks a return to his roots in the New York experimental tradition, infusing it with the politically urgent, multidisciplinary aesthetic he has developed through recent European projects. His international credits include Every Minute Motherland with choreographer Maciej Kuźmiński, Album Karla Höckera with Teatr Trans-Atlantyk, and commissions for the Staatsballett Wiesbaden and Tanz Linz.
Michael Rubenfeld is a Canadian-Polish theatre maker, director, performer, and cultural producer based in Warsaw, whose work investigates memory, identity, and the complexities of intergenerational narrative. Known for blending documentary practice with theatrical innovation, Rubenfeld creates intimate, emotionally resonant performances that challenge audiences to confront history and its living echoes.
Born in Winnipeg and trained at the National Theatre School of Canada, Rubenfeld began his career in Toronto’s independent theatre movement, where he became a central figure in the development of contemporary performance. As co-artistic director of SummerWorks, Canada’s largest juried performance festival, he focused on fostering experimental, political, and cross-disciplinary work.
Since relocating to Warsaw, Rubenfeld has increasingly focused on projects that explore Jewish-Polish history, diasporic memory, and trauma. Works such as We Keep Coming Back reflect Rubenfeld’s hybrid approach—part theatre, part documentary investigation. In Poland, Rubenfeld has developed partnerships between Canadian, Polish, and European institutions to build spaces where complex histories can be engaged with nuance and a commitment to dialogue.
Natan Kryszk is a Warsaw-based musician and visual artist whose work moves fluidly between sound, image, and narrative atmosphere. Drawing on traditions of experimental music, ambient composition, and conceptual visual art, Kryszk focuses on creating immersive environments where sound functions as an atmospheric record of memory.
His practice is driven by a fascination with texture, weaving field recordings, analog instrumentation, and digital synthesis into emotionally charged soundscapes. Whether performing live or composing for theatre, film, and installation, Kryszk’s music is marked by an attention to atmosphere, geography, and the unspoken emotional currents beneath a text.
As a visual artist, Kryszk works with photography, projection, digital media, and scenographic installations, exploring themes of time, disappearance, and transformation. He collaborates widely with international directors, choreographers, and theater companies. In If I Had a Gun, I’d Take Them All Down, Kryszk’s surround-sound environments and live audio design serve as the acoustic framework of the production, transforming a solo performance into a multi-sensory, cinematic encounter.