Artistic “heatwave” sets in

While directors, actors, and other theater-related staff are getting ready to meet their audiences, the public is looking for the best shows to start the new season. First nights and anniversaries, benefit performances, other artistic events — all is set to begin soon.

The theatrical marathon will start at the Kyiv Koleso theater (September 3) and the Kyiv academic drama and comedy theater on the left bank (September 8). The first title on the Koleso’s bills is Chantera Pas after the play by Panas Saksahansky. This is a very significant choice: the production of the only drama by an outstanding theater worker, the leading figure in the Ukrainian theater, has been a success on stage for many years already. It is a play about theater and life behind the stage, dubbed by its creators as a “one-act joke.” It allows the spectator to enjoy the actors’ performance (almost all the company is involved in Iryna Klishchevska’s production), relax, and come closer to professional Ukrainian theater.

The drama and comedy theater on the left bank of the Dnieper is opening its new season in chamber format. They plan to show My Darlings produced by Yurii Pohrebnychko, on the small stage. The play is based on two different texts: Don’t Part with Your Loved Ones by Volodin and extracts from Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment. That means that the spectators will not only have to perceive serious texts and empathize with the characters, but also try to understand Pohrebnychko’s concept as a director (who was invited to produce this play by the artistic director of the theater on the left bank, Edvard Mytnytsky).

Such different themes, characters, plot lines... Some will perhaps see it as an incongruous combination: a certain eclecticism is even found in the visuals (Russian fur hats and evening dresses) and music (which incorporates songs from different epochs). However, it is soon clear that in different epochs, people with different life views, under different social and psychological conditions, faced the same problems. They suffered from loneliness and lack of true feelings. That is why the combination of Volodin’s and Dostoyevsky’s texts is somehow organic.

By the way, My Darlings has this peculiarity that nearly all the company is involved in the production to a bigger or lesser degree, despite the chamber cha-racter of the play. The most conspicuous characters were created by such actors as Natalia Ozirska, Vitalii Lynetsky, Oleksii Tritenko, Volodymyr Tsyvinsky, Oleksandr Hannochenko, Neonila Biletska, and Halyna Kornieieva.