Kulish wrote about it

The Maria Zankovetska Lviv National Academic Ukrainian Drama Theater may very well be the only company in Ukraine that presents over thirty (!) performances every month on big and chamber stages. It is sold out every night for almost all its plays. The head of the theater’s literary division Myroslava OVERCHUK told The Day about the theater’s new productions, its tours, its victories at various festivals, and the peculiarities of its repertoire policy: 

“In the 93th season we’ll overcome difficulties connected with material, creative and social phenomena. Planning a repertoire for us is not only choosing one or another play but also coordinating it with the repertoire context and our creative possibilities.

“We plan to stage four premieres before the New Year, the first of them is Nebylytsi pro Ivana (Fables about Ivan) based on the script by Ivan Mykolaichuk (director Vadym Sikorsky). Perhaps it should be mentioned that friendship and cooperation with Mykolaichuk is an important part in the life of Fedir Stryhun, the artistic director of our theater. Actually, it was Stryhun who advised Sikorsky to take up this work. Soon the actor and director Hryhorii Shumeiko will start working on the comedy by Mykola Kulish Myna Mazailo. There was a time when Kulish’s works weren’t staged because he was banned and later (when the ban was lifted) the writer’s works were staged by everyone without any concept or position.

“The Zankovetska Theater has made reference to Kulish’s heritage before: Stryhun worked on the play Narodny Malakhii (The People’s Malakhii), which was very important for us. Spectators still remember the set design by Myron Kyprian: among tatters and red slogans a ladder rose to the sky, it leans on nothing and leads nowhere. After all, it’s not clear why one should climb up. The theater critic Natalia Kuziakina (the most serious expert on Kulish’s works) said: ‘Only after your performance did I understand what Kulish wrote about in this play!’ She had seen many such performances, so she had what to compare with. You see how life goes: yesterday it seemed that the problem of Ukrainization was not topical, but it turns out Kulish wrote in such a skillful way that it is topical again.

“The theater will bring some happiness to children by staging Po shchuchomu velinniu (By a Wave of the Magic Wand) by Kropyvnytsky. We want to educate our spectators since childhood, and so we prepare a fairy tale every now and then. Nevolnyk (Slave) by Kropyvnytsky based on the poem by Shevchenko will become the next play in the repertoire, it will be produced by Stryhun (the pre-rehearsal work has been ongoing for over a year). The theater’s chamber stage will amuse the Lviv audience with premieres too. Particularly, Tayisia Lytvynenko has already produced Chekhov’s Dama s sobachkoy (The Lady with the Dog) with Yaroslav Muka performing the leading role.

“During the last theater season we toured in Chernivtsi, Rivne, Zhytomyr, Lutsk, Ivano-Frankivsk, and Kolomyia. During these visits we presented one or two plays for a few days. We showed Svatannia na Honcharivtsi (Matchmaking at Honcharivka) and Kryza (Crisis), our most recent premieres. Regarding foreign tours, our actors participated in the ‘Melikhovo Spring’ festival, and also in the festivals ‘Moscow — the World City’ and the ‘Golden Knight’ with plays based on Chekhov (we have twelve of them!). After each forum the plays are discussed with prominent theater critics of international level. They evaluate the work of our production director Alla Babenko and our actors so highly that sometimes one feels uncomfortable reading it. And when Russian critique says that ‘the first ten minutes we were getting used to the Ukrainian language and then it seemed to us that the work was originally written in Ukrainian, that the Ukrainian language brought Chekhov’s gentleness, nobleness and delicacy to the play,’ this has a big effect. Particularly, the play Rozpovid nevidomoho (An Anonymous Story) made a very good impression on critics.

“Generally, we very much appreciate our relations with the Melikhovo festival and its organizer Yurii Bychkov. In Moscow we have a devoted friend Vira Fedorchenko, who is absolutely selfless in representing Ukrainian culture in Russia. She once brought soloists of the Bolshoi Theater here — Ukrainians by origin. Another time she takes care of bringing our performance to Moscow, then she plans some hypothetical future trips and does it only because of her convictions — without any other motive — renewing her energy by what was accomplished.

“We also congratulated the head of the company Yulian Turchyn who has been working in our theater for sixty years! This season, in November, Bohdan Kozak, a Shevchenko Award laureate and leading actor, will celebrate his anniversary.

“The Ukrainian national idea and nobleness. This is what keeps our theater afloat, in contact with the audience and its consciousness — we do not lose our heads because of success, and we are not frustrated by failures.”