A Euromaidan-themed play to be staged in Germany

The Baden State Theatre, located in Karlsruhe, Germany has started working on staging Euromaidan-themed play Detailing, authored by Ukrainian playwright Dmytro Ternovy a whole year before the revolutionary events unfolded in Kyiv. The premiere is scheduled for June 9, while actor reading of the work was held recently a few days on the theater’s small stage.

Ternovy finished working on Detailing, named Hohe Aufloesung in German translation, in November 2012. Critics judged it to be the best play at a major Eastern European dramatic competition “Talking about Borders: Living in a Time of Change-2012.”

The author said that when he was writing the play, he expected that its plot might come true in 2015 during the scheduled presidential election.

“Action of the play unfolds mostly in an apartment overlooking Independence Square. The plot does not deal with protests themselves, but they color all the events taking place there before bursting into its characters’ lives,” Ternovy stressed “Of course, all that really happened in the revolutionary days in Kyiv was impossible to predict. Detailing is a work of art. Still, I shuddered inwardly during the Euromaidan at every emerging similarity between my text and real life, including barricades, dismantled pavers, stone-throwing slingshots, armored vehicles on the streets, and snipers on rooftops.”

The playwright told The Day that presentation of the play in Germany was very well attended: “I did not expect the preliminary reading to cause such interest in the public. The auditorium was filled to capacity, and after the break, I had to answer the audience’s questions about the current situation in Ukraine for an hour and a half, and also gave several interviews to the media. Today, our country is on everyone’s lips in Germany, and Germans are sincerely trying to understand the situation and support us.”

Slavic linguist Lydia Nagel translated the play into German. Young talented director Mina Salehpour is staging it at the Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe. Salehpour received one of Germany’s highest theatrical awards Faust recently for the best pioneering work, adding it to her several festival awards. People are now discussing the idea of staging the German interpretation of the play in several cities of Ukraine.

Presentation of the German edition of the play and actor reading of Detailing are scheduled for Kyiv in April.

“Talking about Borders” is a theatrical and literary project, proposed to Eastern European nations by Austrian director Christian Papke in 2004. The competition takes place in a new country each year (2012 was first and only time when it was held in Ukraine). The organizer of the project is the Austrian Federal Ministry for European and International Affairs, with the support of a number of NGOs based in Austria and the countries-participants of the contest. Members of the international jury unanimously called Detailing the best among more than 50 pieces submitted for the contest.

Ternovy’s play has an unusual structure. It was created at the crossroads of different genres that are not usually combined in a single product. One of the features of the text is a “revival” of objects, allowing pavers, cups, plates, guns and so on their own voice.

The Day’s FACT FILE

Ternovy graduated from the philology department of Kharkiv Karazin National University. For many years he worked as journalist. He joined his wife, poet and director Olha Ternova in 2006 as they established the Theater in Zhuky, where Ternovy doubles as a producer and actor. He penned numerous plays and dramatizations, some of these entering the Theater in Zhuky repertory (We Care a Lot, Clay of Peace and Dorothea)...

The Theater in Zhuky was established in late 2007. Today it is one of the youngest and most active non-government-controlled theaters in Kharkiv. This group has become popular with public due to implementing a number of its unusual creative projects, including international ones.