Portrait of an authentic woman

On June 21, the Art Development Foundation in Kyiv hosted the premiere of Venus and Others: Portrait of an Authentic Woman by the Mushlia Theater of Poetry (artistic director: Serhii Arkhypchuk). This is only the second production staged by this young, experimental company based in Kyiv. The first one was Zapovitne (The Behest) based on the poetry of Mykola Vinhranovsky.

Venus and Others is based on the poetry of Tetiana Vynnyk. “Our new play is the result of our latest creative search,” says Arkhypchuk. “We wanted to stage a play as an analogy to contemporary Ukrainian poetry. We didn’t just dramatize some verses but our current realities, what we live with and think about. We even conducted a series of studies. Work on the production began in December 2006. This past April, after familiarizing ourselves with Vynnyk’s interesting poetry, we realized that we had to concentrate on a single author. We thought: why not Vynnyk? In fact, she doesn’t pursue the Venus theme in her works. We added it in order to thematically unite all the selected works. The result is a kind of women’s encyclopedia.”

Venus and Others mainly conveys the ideas and emotions of women aged 20 or a bit older. But this is what’s on the surface. Concealed behind the overemotional and exalted state of mind germane to young women is the profoundly feminine essence. Hence this Portrait of an Authentic Woman, which contains the following lines: “Oh, how much suffering you have breathed into my hair”; “You were breaking me like a loaf of bread, prophesying maternity for me”; “I’ll be your last one, because I’ll struggle for Eternity with you”; “Get off my land...I’ve had so many weddings, I’m sick of seeing white.” A lot of these pronouncements address all women. We may mature with time, but we have our memories and experiences.

Men can also enjoy this play billed “for women only,” not that they are likely to grasp every nuance germane to the fair sex. A man who claims to know everything about a woman is probably crazy, but it might simply help him meet a woman without any masks.

“This play is completely different from our first production,” says actor Yevhen Nyshchuk, who had a role in the The Behest. “I would call it futuristic to an extent. I was thrilled to try to understand what a woman experiences between 20 and 25 years of age. Apparently she changes somewhat as she grows a bit older — and I say somewhat because her emotions remain largely the same, although they acquire scope and depth with the passing years.”