Theater for a wise Harlequin

The new stage occupants received greetings from their colleagues from other theaters, politicians, governmental officials, businesspeople, and other Kyivites who love this acclaimed company. Bohdan Stupka emotionally recalled that when he was the minister of culture, he “tried to solve the problem of having a smaller stage, but the burden was so heavy that something was always in the way: the construction would begin and stop all the time. Thing improved just the year before last, after I had turned to the prime minister for help. Now we are celebrating the opening of the Chamber Stage, so we dedicated this event to Serhii Danchenko’s anniversary and Overture. Goodbye is the first production theatergoers will see. This play, based on Ivan Franko’s classical story Jay’s Wing, is directed by Andrii Prykhodko and stars Natalia Korpan and Ostap Stupka. It is a modern-day look at Franko’s heritage. From now on, we can make fuller use of the troupe as well as enable our colleagues from other theaters and cities to show their productions here. For example, Yurii Brylynsky, an actor at the Lviv Maria Zankovetska Theater, is inviting you to watch a mono-production, Old Tune, based on Vasyl Stefanyk’s short stories, on March 23, and please come on March 24 for the premiere of The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, a stage version of the homonymous story by Fyodor Dostoevsky, prepared by our actor Petro Panchuk. Our plans include various productions – from classics to contemporary works.”

“Our company has decided that the Chamber Stage should be named after Danchenko, for it was his idea that Franko Theater have a place for experiments and small-scale productions,” Mykhailo Zakharevych, general manager of the Ivan Franko Theater, said. “That producer deserves to have this kind of monument, owing to his oeuvre. The master would have marked his 75th birthday on March 17, but he failed to live to see this day. Yet we do remember Serhii Danchenko as a stage director of genius, a nice personality, who raised the Ukrainian theater to the world level. From now on, our actors have three stages: big, chamber, and the Foyer Theater. It is a good field to show one’s creative skills in various productions. The new hall has 170 seats. Every stage director has his own vision of a production, so we want this stage to be a transformer next year. We want not only to stage our own productions here but also to hold master classes, concerts, allow the touring theaters to show their mono-productions, and to give actors an opportunity to experiment, which will rouse the interest of audiences.”

“Opening the Chamber Stage is blazing a trail to the future,” says Les Taniuk, chairman of Ukraine’s National League of Theater Personalities. “It is no mere chance that it is named after Serhii Danchenko, and on this day I handed the Danchenko Prize and a medal to Volodymyr Mahar, artistic director of Sevastopol’s Lunacharsky Russian Drama Theater – it is chain that links masters of the past, such as Danchenko, with the present day. I think this will be a stage on which you will hear a good Ukrainian language and see the best actors, where, to quote Bohdan Stupka, ‘we can bring up a wise Harlequin of whom Les Kurbas dreamed.’”

“I was lucky not only to mingle but also to work with Serhii Danchenko,” Franko Theater actress Natalia Sumska said. “First he assigned me a small role of Dido in The Aeneid, then I suggested putting on the rock opera Black Sheep on our stage. Although, as a rule, it is the artistic director who draws up the repertoire, in this case Danchenko supported my initiative. I am very grateful to him for having trusted me – we had a very good production. You know, Danchenko would keep actors at arm’s length, but, at the same time, we would attract us like a magnet. I can remember Danchenko saying he wanted to put on Pygmalion as soon as possible because the Nadra Bank, our theater’s sponsor at the time, was giving money for this Bernard Shaw play only. So he assigned the main roles to the experienced actors Anatolii Khostikoiev, Oleksii Bohdanovych, and me. It was destined to be Danchenko’s last production. Audiences like it very much, and we have been playing it for more than 10 years. But, because of his illness, Danchenko could not put on Kean IV, so he ‘blessed’ Khostikoiev to debut as a producer. When Serhii Danchenko died, his friend, comrade, and signature actor Bohdan Stupka picked up the Franko Theater’s flag to continue the cause of Danchenko and go on building the contemporary Ukrainian theater.”