Touching Cupid
What took place at the Suzirya Theater (currently under repair) on March 26 had nothing to do with what is generally understood as a drama performance; no cast, no setting, nor plot. Yet it would be hard to think of anything more spectacular and theatrically touching.
Everything seemed to happen of its own accord, like a special ritual shrouded in mystery and thus even more exciting. At the set time, the guests — journalists and theatergoers — gathered on the premises of the former jockey club (currently the Suzirya in its present exploded view) on Yaroslaviv val. Protracted repair works had turned the familiar modern interior into an avant-garde alien environment. It was as if the building had grown a skeleton within, in the form of scaffolding all the way from floor to ceiling. After climbing to the top of the shaky structure one could touch the ceiling and its stucco decorations faded with time, pat the plump cupids on their curly heads as they stared at the vain mortals hustling and bustling below, the way they had done for more than a century.
Suzirya’s artistic director Oleksiy Kuzhelny, smartly dressed and radiating joy, delivered a speech to the effect that his theater, with the help of its team of restorers, had established direct contact with Kyiv’s theatrical past. During the restoration work, it appeared, someone discovered posters under layers of plaster dating from before the Russian Revolution. Yet the guests were in for the biggest surprise, Mr. Kuzhelny announced, ringing the bell, as is customary before the start of the performance. Everybody present was staring at the wall with the old posters when Oleksiy Kuzhelny touched a scalpel to one of the posters and — oh miracle of miracles! — it slid off the wall and into his hands practically undamaged.
Incredibly, the poster informed that a Ukrainian troupe led by O. K. Saksahansky would perform The Woman Serf at the open-air theater of the Kyiv Society of Merchants on Tuesday July 29, 1908.
The state in which the theatergoers, critics, and historians were at the moment could be compared to that of Jews seeing the tablets of the Commandments Moses received from Jehovah. They were ready to faint with envy, a dark envy that gradually got lighter and finally reached the point of enlightenment.
There was Oleksiy Kuzhelny holding in his hands genuine and live history of the Ukrainian theater.
No further comment was needed.
In the end the guests were presented with invitations for the opening of Suzirya after repair. No date, but Mr. Kuzhelny said it would take place on July 29, 2008.
Perhaps he was joking.
