Bohdan STUPKA: We take care of our successors

The Ivan Franko Theater traditionally begins the season with Ukrainian classics. On September 24, the audience will be able to see the legendary Stolen Happiness. This play was created back in 1979 by the famous director Serhii Danchenko, and based on Ivan Franko’s eponymous drama. It was a turning point for the main actors, Bohdan Stupka (who played Zadorozhny) and Vitalii Roztalny (in the role of Hurman), as well as the group itself. Serhii Danchenko, who headed the capital theater in 1978, managed not only to revive the downhearted group, but also to add another page in the golden book of Ukrainian theater. In this stage version, the original dramatic story taking place in a Prykarpattia village becomes a parable about love and hatred. Several generations of the Franko Theater’s actors matured with this play. The production repeatedly represented the theater at pres-tigious theater forums and festivals, and Bohdan Stupka played the role of Mykola Zadorozhny for more than three decades (!), and with success. On September 24 Iryna Doroshenko (Anna), Volodymyr Necheporenko (Mykhailo Hurman) and others will be Stupka’s partners in the performance.

At present the Franko Theater is considered Ukraine’s main stage. Stupka not only manages to keep the theater’s lead, undertake creative experiments, invite different directors, but also to remain the leading actor of the famous company and to act in movies. So, what does Stupka and the Franko Theater have in store for us?

“The play Zorba the Greek will be our next premiere — it will be played on September 30. Vitalii Malakhov and Anatolii Khostikoiev wrote the play based on the novel of the same name written by Nikos Kazantzakis. The performance is staged by Malakhov, and Khostikoiev, Natalia Sumska, and Taras Postnykov will play the leading roles. On September 23-28 the VII International Festival of Solo Performances Maria will be held in our theater; actresses from Belarus, Russia, the USA, Hungary, Poland, and Ukraine will present their works there,” says Stupka. “The forum will feature the premiere performance The Old Lady Sits Waiting. A play by Tadeusz Rozewicz that was staged by the director Zbigniew Krzanowski (set design by Yevhen Lysyk) specially for the actress Larysa Kadyrova.

“Rehearsals of Urus-Shaitan. Fables about Cossacks’ Commander Sirko, Chevalier d’Artagnan, and the Turkish Sultan have begun already. Ihor Afanasiev rewrote his novel specifically as a play for our theater, and he will be its production director. Ihor wants the three generations of Stupkas to play in the performance (Afanasiev saw me playing the part of old Sirko, Volodymyr Necheporenko is also preparing the same role). The famous artist Serhii Yakutovych is working on the set design. The premiere is scheduled for the end of December. Petro Ilchenko is rehearsing another play by Afanasiev, A Lonely Lady, on the small stage, where the leading figure of the Franko Theater Halyna Yablonska will play the main role. The director Yurii Rozstalny continues to share Lesia Ukrainka’s heritage with contemporary viewers. On the Bloody Field, his previous work on the small stage, was praised by critics and viewers. This time he deals with the poetic drama The Possessed. While Volodymyr Kuchynsky is working on staging Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky, Faust’s Games is the working title of the performance (the roles are rehearsed by Tetiana Mikhina, Andrii Vodychev, and Oleh Drach). Oleksandr Bilozub is rehearsing The Ukrainian Romance, in which the audience will see the Franko’s actors as new characters: singers. Meanwhile Yurii Odynoky is interested in the novel by the contemporary Ukrainian writer Serhii Zhadan, and will stage his Anthem of Democratic Youth. Yurii Kochevenko turned to the works of the popular French playwright Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt. Viewers will see popular actors in the play The Crime Boulevard: Les Zadniprovsky, Liudmyla Smorodina, Olena Fesunenko, and Taras Zhyrko.

“This year, the First National Channel offered to air a monthly te-levision broadcast of the theater’s performances. The play Stolen Happiness will launch this project. It will be broadcast on October 1; we also plan to film not only the old, extremely popular productions, but also premiere performances.

“By the way, the Franko company accepted seven newcomers, my students who graduated this year from the acting workshop of the National University of Theater, Cinema, and Television. We take care of our successors.”

In August, Stupka’s admirers were frightened by media reports about the actor’s alleged health problems: while filming the movie Once in Rostov, Stupka was sent to the hospital. Thankfully, the “information” turned out to be grossly exaggerated (due to the heat the actor’s blood pressure increased, doctors put him under dropper, and the actor later returned to the set — The Day covered this at length). Who does Stupka play in the series, and what is the movie about?

“The movie’s events take place in the early 1960’s. A peaceful demonstration, or ‘hunger revolt’ as it was called, which led to hundreds of deaths, is a historical fact that was concealed by the authorities for a long time,” Stupka explained. “Demonstrators were shot and witnesses of those terrible events in Novocherkassk, Rostov region, disappeared. The exact number of victims remains unknown. People came to the city square when the government announced a 30-percent reduction of wages and an increase of food prices. The movie’s plot combines two events: the shooting of unarmed people on the square — not only male workers, but also women and children, and the robberies of the Tolstopyatovys gang, which was active for ten years in Novocherkassk (Konstantin Khudiakov is the series’ director ). Though these events didn’t coincide historically, in the movie they are closely intertwined, making it more dynamic. During summer the scenes were shot in Mariupol. The building of the local drama theater turned out to be a copy of the Novocherkassk city hall, so we didn’t have to build the scenery, we just changed the plates and draped it with red calico. In September the crew moved to the Crimea to continue shooting in Sevastopol. Sergei Zhygunov is the author of the idea and the film producer; he also plays the role of a KGB officer. Vladimir Vdovichenkov plays the Tolstopyatovy gang leader, and I play the role of a worker and father Poletayev. Alla Babenko, Yurii Bieliaiev and others also figure in the movie. By the way, shooting the movie prevented me from participating in the international festival Theater. Chekhov. Yalta, where I was as an honorable guest (our theater will open this forum with the play Marriage).

“Near Kyiv we had location shootings for the series 1945. Director Volodymyr Balkashynov invited me to play the role of the head of a collective farm. The movie describes the post-war period and the difficulties encountered while rebuilding the local agriculture.”