Valery Bilchenko is a stage director. Despite excellent reviews and professional awards (two personal Kyiv Pectorals for directorial mastery), his name is actually known to a handful of experts and critics, rather than to the general public.
In the early 1990s his Archaeology and Then I said ‘B’ appeared at the Kyiv Youth Theater on Prorizna St., but the company was not very popular and Bilchenko’s only consolation was the effect his productions had on professional researchers of the theater. There were Archaeology fans who would come to literally every performance, watching the play over and over again. In 1994, he staged A Shot in the Autumnal Garden, based on Anton Chekhov’s Cherry Orchard, in a suite of rooms in an old mansion in Podil. Personally, I thought the play justified the Ukrainian theater’s existence over the past decade. His bold interpretation caused heated debates among the critics and very soon became another exhibit in Kyiv’s “collection of theatrical ghosts.” It was staged only three times, and Bilchenko’s next Pectoral was hardly sufficient consolation for the director and his experimental Youth Theater cast, because they had lost their unique, cherished “concert of atmosphere” where Chekhov’s longing and bitterness were not so much the final diagnosis of a decaying society as a warning that new, worse spiritual sufferings were in the offing. A Shot in the Autumnal Garden was a prophecy that came true for Bilchenko’s company. Neither the premises given them by the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, nor the miserable subsidies from the Culture Ministry could sustain the experimental theater (and it was experimental not only by the notice at the entrance, but also by its very spirit). In 1996, Bilchenko quit and left Ukraine, an act triggering off false rumors and condemnation. For many a stage director was walking out on his cast, turning traitor, since some of the actors who had joined the company, believing in him, were now quitting, too. Probably the truth of the matter was that the maximalist Bilchenko left for both practical reasons and because he refused to put up with his company’s dubious status in Kyiv. The group could no longer exist in the “studio quest” mode; the era of government sponsorship was over and he could not and would not join the “commercial theater.”
During his recent visit to Kyiv Valery Bilchenko agreed to an interview with The Day.
Q.: You took your family to Germany two months ago. Does this mean burning your bridges, that you see no prospects here?
A.: What prospects do you have in mind? My last pay at the theater was Hr 130. You can’t support your family on that kind of money. In Germany I live exactly the same way I did in Kyiv, except that I do the shopping at a supermarket, not street bazaars, the streetcars are cleaner, and there are a lot of Germans around. That’s about all, and you would be very wrong to think that I enjoy living there. It’s just that any philosophizing about where it is best to live boils down to whether or not you have a choice. Well, I made the only choice I had.
Q.: You don’t believe that the situation in Ukraine will improve, do you?
A.: My believing has nothing to do with logic. I wish the situation would improve, very much so, but I don’t see any prerequisites. It pains my heart to watch Ukraine sink ever deeper in the abyss of chaos and lawlessness, with everyone feeling free to rob everything, and everybody lying to everybody. I just can’t stand it. This time I was shocked to see a big poster in the metro showing a sleek self-content President Kuchma with his daughter and the caption that would have made any Soviet general secretary red with envy, something like “My destiny is inseparable from my nation’s.” This is hypocrisy raised to the level of obscenity, with the mob being fed tales about well-being and moral health, when it is increasingly safe to defy the laws and again lies, lies everywhere. Take the theater: piles of falsehood. They are losing their aesthetic touch along with their conscience. I know some of the plays being praised by critics, and they are mere imitations with nothing to do with art. But they are praised because other productions are worse. Now if something doesn’t stink you don’t call it gold, do you?
Q.: Do you feel better in Germany?
A.: It is not a very free country, strictly speaking. However, they keep things in perfect order and people act accordingly. They wouldn’t dream of doing something against the rules, even if they needed to very much, the way we do here every day. Paradoxically, there is something pious, almost Christian, about their abiding by simple and clear rules. Naturally, this mentality was formed by a stable system. Turn the tap and you’re sure that water will start running. Little things add to your sense of confidence, something we’ve never had. And this begets lawlessness, chaos, dishonesty, taking the easy way, and intrigue.
Q.: Suppose you could do things the smart way, you wouldn’t have to leave, would you? After all, you did have true professional success in Ukraine.
A.: That’s right. In Ukraine, money is made backstage. One has to visit offices, to bow and scrape before bureaucrats. Much as I hated all this, I did so, too, but no one took me seriously. They just didn’t trust me, perhaps with reason. One good thing about the whole experience was that I cured myself of vanity once and for all. There was a time when I started to perk up, so this was like a good cold shower. One’s name means little in Ukraine. The important thing is to have connections in the right places. And, of course, to curry favors with the boss. In my case the situation was perfectly idiotic. My name was a fetish meant for fools. I went around asking for subsidies for the theater, feeling like a complete jackass. In Germany, the opposite is the case. Once you’ve made your name you’re sure to have a good job.
Q.: You mean you know this from your own experience?
A.: I do. I was lucky, you know. There are plenty of stage directors in Germany, including Soviet emigres. Besides, a foreigner wishing to make a career in this business is faced with virtually insurmountable obstacles. The thing is that the German theater is far more hierarchical than ours and each “caste” exists separately, aloof from all the others. The situation rather typical in Ukraine, when a young, practically unknown stage director offers an acclaimed actor a role in his play, is unthinkable in Germany. At best, this director will be regarded as a little crazy. Now my Ivanov cast boasts two of Germany’s best dramatic talents: Ernst Stossner and Dieter Mann. And I had another stroke of unbelievable luck. They offered me the Deutschestheatre Barracks. And I teach at a private drama school. In a word, I have fully adapted myself socially, but quite frankly, if I knew I could sustain my family in Ukraine I would pack and go. In a minute!
Q.: In other words, you think you cannot fully reveal your creative potential in Germany?
A.: Right. Despite all my success, I have a strong feeling of dissatisfaction. I am sure that a stage director can work most fruitfully only in his native environs. Of course, there are happy exceptions to this rule, some can come up with a universal theatrical language. Bob Wilson, for one; he makes unbelievably beautiful works, but even he would not be able to get across to a foreign audience the way a native stage director can. Besides, my theater is primarily linked to the actor. I am interested in man, things that happen deep inside each actor during a rehearsal. I have always believed that the theater is the supreme reality. It isn’t an artificial world created by one’s imagination. It is ethics and philosophy materialized. To organize a “case of transformation” for the actor, one must find a common language with him, to get across to him. In Germany I hold rehearsals with an excellent simultaneous interpreter, yet every time I feel terribly disappointed. I can’t keep the play in shape, it spreads out like dough. I know, I must be biased, they offered me a new rendition. But I also know that the result would be much better if I worked with my old cast.
Q.: Do you have any plans for the Experimental Theater?
A.: Yes, I’d like to stage Bertolt Brecht’s The Caucasian Chalk Circle in Kyiv, but that’s wishful thinking so far. I don’t think I’ll be able to get the money.
Q.: Has it ever occurred to you that our theatrical generation would be happier if we could at some point penetrate deeper into the “official theater”? For example, if Volodymyr Kuchynsky were invited to Lviv’s Zankovetska company and you or Oleh Liptsyn to Kyiv’s Ivan Franko? Maybe you would have a different life by now and the entire theatrical situation would be different?
A.: I don’t think so. After all, we weren’t eager to get there. Personally, I never wanted to get involved with the theatrical nomenklatura and even when we negotiated some business with the Lesia Ukrainka Russian Drama, I found myself doing all this half-heartedly. And I am sure that they all treated us like outsiders, we did not inspire much confidence in them. Our lifestyle and productions were regarded with a definite degree of suspicion, even hostility. I think that what happened to the theater in Ukraine was quite logical. Financial problems served as a catalyst, causing its collapse. At a time of crisis man shows his true self and starts doing the things that are really important for him. In other words, today’s crisis existed in dormancy in all those earlier trouble-free years. Now the dormant has become active, but let me tell you again that I would be happy to return to work in Ukraine. I am perfectly aware of my German prospects. God willing, I will stage more plays and continue teaching the dramatic arts to German boys and girls, poisoning them with my Slavic mentality and with what is known as Eastern mysticism.







