Why Viktiuk could not fit into Lviv mold

The sexual revolution, awaited with trepidation by Lviv’s bureaucrats in charge of culture and communications due to the coming arrival of Roman Viktiuk’s drama company to Ukraine, never took place. After giving the four promised performances, the troupe departed on a tour of America, leaving us to wonder, for the umpteenth time about our destructive desire to drive away from this country all that does not seem to fit into traditional Ukrainian images (such as someone shouting fake patriotic slogans during rallies or drinking samohon moonshine and eating salo fatback).

Roman Viktiuk does not fit in the traditional mold, of course, although he has never disowned Ukraine, all previous and current attempts to make him do just that notwithstanding. He speaks only Ukrainian in all public places of Russian-speaking Kyiv, even at the Russian Drama Theater where his company gave the scheduled performances. In fact, he often lapses into Ukrainian when communicating with Moscow colleagues and journalists. This is not just antics. When interviewed, he mentions his Greek Catholic creed. He remembers the heavenly laws and has not forgotten his birthplace, Lviv, the crossing of Eastern Orthodox culture and philosophy (with their emotional sermons professing aloofness from the sinful earthly world) with Catholicism (with its pragmatism and attempts to reconcile His Kingdom with that of Caesar’s).

Viktiuk’s conflict with Lviv authorities was not ontological. Strange as it may seem, deep inside, Roman Viktiuk adheres to traditional values, championing the good old ideals of love, chastity, and charity. Unlike state bureaucrats, he is against sanctimony, narrow-minded views on man and the world, all that which the homebred patriots are trying to impose on their fellow citizens. Lviv to him is not just the city of Ivan Franko, the UPA Ukrainian Insurgent Army, and the Association of Ukrainian Women. It is also a venue of Polish, Austrian, German, and Russian cultures. His plays’ openness to people on both sides of Ukraine’s borders is what makes them a serious threat to all those trying to convince us that only they are on the right course, be it culture, politics, or you name it.

The plays he brought to Ukraine this time were meant to refute the general belief that Roman Viktiuk is primarily concerned about sexual minorities, that he is just an erotomaniac (albeit with an undeniable dramatic talent, a handsome sexual gourmet of sorts and, hence, his championing of free love and various sexual extravangzas). It is true that quite a few of his productions are rich in sensuality, boiling passions, and accompanied by music that really hits you below the belt. Behind this sparkling display of lavish flesh and rich whimsical costumes, irresistibly attracting audiences the way insects are drawn to light, is hidden what Roman Viktiuk calls “poison.” Correct dosage makes it a powerful remedy, but it is still poison and, to continue the insect analogy, you can burn your wings if you get too close. Viktiuk is playing with fire, indeed, obviously under the assumption that, by being tried in the furnace of passion, man can get tempered, developing an immunity against the dictatorship of uncontrollable desires and emotions draining man of will. This disputable philosophy holds that the lessons of life can be learned only through personal experience (Oriental sages claim that only a fool learns from his own experience, whereas for a clever individual need only hear about others’ mistakes). It would be naХve to assume that Viktiuk firmly believes in the cure- it-all power of sex. This conqueror of distrustful Moscow, described by one of the local periodicals as “a smart fellow from Western Ukraine,” is actually too clever, too well read in Russian religious philosophers, not to understand that the flesh can conquer the free spirit. After all, he is too conscientious to pour oil on the fire of passions in the poor and downtrodden of this world, tempting them with promises of erotic paradise. The characters of his comedies (e.g., The Hookers which he brought to Kyiv) need love far more than they do sex. The heroes of his dramas, despite the extravagant private lifestyles, invariably betray tragic overtones. For their attempt to find happiness in sheer sex dooms them to experience yet another pathological breakup of an androgynous creation that never comes to be and within which all inner differences of the sexes would have been reconciled. While declaring in countless interviews that the idea of love is the only asylum for the human race haunted by fears and solitude, Viktiuk, as a true follower of Mykola Berdyaev [Ukr. philosopher (1874-1948)], also remembers that “love is such a twisted and profaned notion in this miserable life that it has become practically impossible to utter words of love; it is necessary to find new words.” So he tries to find such new words in the language of choreography, dramatic gestures, and symbols.

Of the four plays he brought to Kyiv, love was perhaps most prominent in The Hookers , whereas the rest (except the episode from The Master and Margarita ) were about its absence. Despite the eloquent title, The Hookers is markedly asexual. Do not look for sex where there is so much talk about sex, for plenty of sex leaves little room for talk. Likewise, the heroes of the scandalous play Let’s Have Sex! are denied carnal joys, although they talk about nothing else. The audience, keyed up by a bold discussion of topics seldom broached in public places, (applauding proclamations from the stage like “Everybody wants to have sex!”) experiences a slight shock in the finale, realizing that the phrase “let’s have sex,” while being introduced by the play into the daily vocabulary like phrases “let’s have dinner,” “let’s go shopping,” or “let’s have some tea,” comes from an insane woman. The realization that inmates of a mental hospital have been exchanging all these exciting sexual proposals is that very “poison” in an attractive candy wrapping prepared by Roman Viktiuk.

I think that this cold shower was also useful for the “chaste” Lviv public which is unlikely to have been protected from aggressive pop culture and advertising that teaches us to see an object of our desire in everything and find sexual symbols everywhere, just like that other heroine of the scandalous play. Viktiuk, who had introduced a scene of stripping women in his Master and Margarita at the dawn of perestroika, has managed to avoid a detailed and uncensored portrayal of Woland’s Ball (now this would make one hell of a good erotic show!). Instead, he staged a play about crazy proletarian poets and writers, insane leaders, an insane epoch with which he still tries to get even, fearing its return. There is a hope, however, that Roman Viktiuk’s prolonged good-byes with the recent past will soon end. He is absolutely sure that the theater (and man) must be updated every five to seven years. This is what he demonstrated during this tour, offering his audiences an entirely different, solid kind of aesthetics, denying them the pleasure of watching The Maidservants, Butterfly, and Salome . This time he brought something more elevated than the satisfaction of instincts. It was the joy of thinking, self-cognition promising freedom from all that interfering with loving and being loved in return.