Three anniversaries on one stage

National Lesia Ukrainka Russian Drama Theater will celebrate three jubilees this season: the 120th anniversary of being Ukraine’s first stationary Russian-language theater, the 85th anniversary of being awarded the status of state-run theater, and the 70th anniversary of being named after Lesia Ukrainka.

On September 18 the theater will show Lesia Ukrainka’s play In Passion’s Thrall (The Stone Host) directed by Mykhailo Reznikovych.

Incidentally, by preserving the best traditions, the theater has not fallen into stagnation. It is always in search of creativity: its repertoire is regularly updated with new productions and its troupe with new faces — the younger generation being raised at the theater’s Studio of Young Actors.

Audiences are invited to a premiere on September 28. The comedy Too Happy a Father is based on Ray Cooney’s play Caught in the Net, a continuation of the story of Run for Your Wife which, as well as No. 13 (Out of Order) by the same author, have filled Kyiv audiences for years. The play is directed by Iryna Barkovska, while the main parts are played by Kyrylo Kashlykov, Stanislav Moskvin, Olha Kulchytska, Hanna Natalushko, Leonid Titov, and others.

The theater’s repertoire will also include The Cherry Orchard, to mark the 150th anniversary of Anton Chekhov, with Arkady Katz (Moscow) directing. Incidentally, the Lesia Ukrainka Theater already shows two productions of this director: Wolves and Sheep and A Lucrative Post by Alexander Ostrovsky, which go down very well with audiences. The Cherry Orchard addresses the problem of human egoism. In the bustle of their daily routines, the play’s characters have forgotten the old servant Firs who has loyally served them all his lifetime. The stage director chose a little-known version of the play, where the part of Firs is slightly bigger than in traditional productions. Firs is played by the theater’s leading actor Mykola Rushkovsky, who marked his 85th birthday this year. He is accompanied by such actors as Tetiana Nazarova, Oleksandr Hetmansky, Natalia Dolia, and others.

The production 105th Page on Love (an homage of sorts to the famous play 104 Pages on Love by Edvard Radzinsky) will offer the spectators an unusual view on love in the most extreme situations. This is a theatrical interpretation of several 20th century stories. The play was adapted for theater and directed by Mykhailo Reznikovych. The production involves a lot of people — mostly young actors who work side by side with such experienced masters as Dolia, Kulchytska, Trepovsky, and Khoroshko. There will be many new faces.

At the end of the previous season, actors of the theater and the affiliated Professional Actors Studio displayed their own works based on Chekhov’s short stories. The theater management took interest in this on-stage parade of the classic’s short stories, and their “sketches” will soon see the light of day: just watch the billboard for A Thousand and One Passions, or The Trivia of Life. Incidentally, the theater has already undertaken a similar endeavor, when it produced Tricksters Against Their Will based on Chekhov’s short stories.

The theater is planning to show a few more productions in early 2011, such as Ivan Turgenev’s Hanger-on, William Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, Ronald Harwood’s Quartet, and Neil LaBute’s Fat Pig.