Children’s theater in Kharkiv for people who want to discover themselves

Timur is an unconventional Kharkiv-based theater where children play adult roles - not only on stage but also in real life. In spite of their young age, these actors can teach important lessons to children who have a hard life. Timur is special because most of its actors are orphans, homeless children, kids from problem families, and those in poor health. They perform in Peter Pan and the stage versions of Astrid Lindgren’s fairytales. The person who is helping disadvantage children discover themselves is Vasyl Sydin, the theater’s artistic director, who talked to The Day about special features of the Timur Theater.

How did you hit upon the idea of founding a theater for homeless children?

“It was life that prompted this idea. When I ended up on the streets at age 10, I met a woman who suggested that I join a drama group. This is how I ended up on the stage, and I have almost never left it. I say ‘almost’ because there was a time when I quit the theater and thought it was the end of my theatrical career. Then I suddenly remembered that it was the theater that saved me when everybody else had abandoned me, so I decided to create something along these lines. To form the first troupe, I turned to the local juvenile delinquency authorities. They gave me a list of problem children, and I began working with them. Our society was first called Brats. This name completely suited the actors - street urchins who behaved rowdily but still had a strong character. Later we chose the name Timur, because it fully meets our goal of doing good deeds and showing mercy to people (an allusion to the altruistic youth Timur, a Soviet-era literary character - Ed.). So our theater has been functioning for over 30 years. We are now in a position to accept everybody into our ranks. I must admit that at first I had to look for talented young people on the streets, and in reformatory schools and police stations. Luckily, the situation has changed: children themselves keep coming to our theater, which means we are on the right track.”

How do you help children in poor health?

“The point is that, in addition to acting lessons, we also offer lessons of mercy. According to psychological research findings, a person memorizes a mere 10 percent of verbal information and draws the remaining experience from life. So the motto of our theater is: ‘Hurry to do good.’ I think this is the only way to teach children to care about lonely, sick, and old people. In order to provide a realistic foundation for this kind of spiritual education, every year we ‘set sail in an ark’ - that is what I call the theater’s country house, where about 25 children with cerebral palsy who live in a Kharkiv boarding school receive treatment every July. Since we are a non-profit organization, our main sponsors are former graduates and parents of the children now playing at Timur. Some bring ice cream, some donate money for bedding, while others roll up their sleeves and get down to work. Sometimes the mothers of my pupils become part-time cooks at the ‘ark.’ The child actors help the grownups and the sick children. Communicating with and helping them teach the young actors to be sympathetic, merciful, and responsible. In other words, lessons of mercy help both the sick children and the healthy ones. After this ‘sailing,’ the orphans go back to their orphanage. But we don’t forget them and are trying to do our best to keep them from eventually ending up in a nursing home.

“In addition to orphans, our theater also accepts people with mental problems. There are a few schizophrenics in our 60-strong theater company. They cannot imagine living without the theater because they find peace of mind and salvation here and feel that society needs them.”

Where does your theater perform?

“We go to the places where we’ve been invited. Since our theater performs the special mission of helping people discover themselves and change their lives, most often we play in orphanages, boarding schools, penitentiaries, etc., because those who reside in these institutions lack care, protection, and reeducation lessons. We recently toured Kyiv oblast at the invitation of Rev. Filaret, chief of the Orthodox Teaching Association of the Kyiv Cave Monastery. We played in Makariv district villages as well as in a high-security prison camp in Bila Tserkva. Before going on stage, one of the young actors admitted that he was afraid to perform for convicts, although I thought the children had gotten used to performing for this kind of audience - we had been invited to women’s and children’s penal institutions many times. But the children were most frightened in this place. Everything changed after the show, when a convict came up to the young actors and thanked them for their performance. I think this helped them understand that their acting can radically change an individual’s life.

“We go on tours not only in Ukraine - we visit Moscow every year. The audience is the same as in our country. Over a one-week period we perform in prisons and children’s institutions, and meet Russian linguists, scholars, and writers who help us enrich our repertory. We perform children’s classics - not everyone knows how to write for children, particularly dramas. We are planning to stage Frances H. Burnett’s Little Lord Fauntleroy at Christmas time. That’s when our theater receives the largest number of invitations. We perform for 5,000 to 15,000 people during this holiday.”

Does anybody assist you at the theater? Surely one person cannot organize all these things.

“Actually, my theater is a large, closely-knit family, and everyone is ready to help each other. But I could not have managed without my wife during the ‘Ark’ summer session. She is a pediatrician. But what worries me the most is that our children, especially street children and orphans, lack motherly love and parental care. Since nobody teaches them to be kindhearted and sensitive, they grow up to be spiritually impoverished. I call this situation an attempt to rob children of the gift to live conscientiously. Our theater is partially returning this gift to them. I have been writing letters about this to Kharkiv City Hall for the last 11 years and publicizing them in the local media. Of course, all my complaints and requests remain unanswered. In my view, establishing Timur-type theaters and children’s spiritual education centers, as well as reinforcing the institution of the family, can further increase our cultural level. We have to think about the culture of the people and the individual right now, not once we satisfy all our material needs.”

COMMENTARY

Kateryna OVCHAREK, psychologist, Institute of Positive Cross-Cultural Psychotherapy and Management:

“Homeless children and orphans do not have the image of a mother and father, i.e., the model of a family. The absence of a well-developed ‘we’ reduces the emotional and rational experience that a child is supposed to receive from his parents. This also applies to those who grow up in single-parent families. More often than not, children of adolescent/transitional age develop difficulties because they don’t know how to establish a relationship with the opposite sex. They feel confused when it comes to choosing an occupation. The point is they have no role models. This is why a child often makes an intuitive and, hence, possibly erroneous, choice. In general, such children are perplexed not just on the social but also on the physical, mental, and spiritual levels. They experience difficulties in making personal contact. As a result, they either dive headlong into communication or, on the contrary, turn inward.

“At the physical level, street children do not know about the basics of healthy living, and in the sphere of spiritual life they cannot identify the sense of their existence and basic life values. Most psychologists claim that a child develops all the necessary life attitudes before the age of eight. Children usually do this by following their parents’ example or on the basis of their own life experiences. If these moral qualities have not been formed, the child faces a depression or a crisis because of the lack of attention from their families.

“The result is that there is very little love, compassion, and other important feelings in the lives of these children. A human life has two cardinal qualities: loving and knowing. So orphans and homeless children have an opportunity to know but lack emotional experience. Art full of reflections and emotions can fill this gap. Today there are many varieties of art therapy. For example, a psychological drama plays a positive role in rehabilitating an individual. When an individual, including a child, becomes absorbed in the problems of the stage hero, to some extent they realize their own desires. The child is even more positively affected when several individuals interact on stage. In other words, this creates a therapeutic group that against the backdrop of the script embodies life dreams. “Often, the stage shows the past of the hero and of one’s self. This gives the actor a chance to revisit it once more, this time with other consequences. Sometimes becoming absorbed in a role in the past means doing things the way you would like to. If a person lacks emotional experience, s/he can only replenish it by way of feelings. One should influence the subconscious in such a way that certain attitudes, ideas, and views may change. This is why stage acting helps find a link with the subconscious and create a new emotional experience. This means that revising the negative past on stage results in a repeated trip through this past — this time with a positive sign. Because an individual does not always have a positive experience, it will be a good idea to revisit it, identifying oneself with the stage character.

“Other arts also help individuals rehabilitate themselves. For example, fine art makes it possible to link the ego on a piece of canvas with the problem that torments an individual. Colors are spells in the hands of an artist. On the one hand, he is looking at a black spot but on the other, he can alter it. Music instantly helps people enter the subconscious level, and an individual often develops a feeling of retrospection, the repeated experiencing of certain feelings.”