Lion on a starvation diet

LVIV – This year’s Golden Lion Festival has separated from the traditional carnival and reduced the number of invited companies. Ne­vertheless, the jubilee 20th International Theater Festival was launched on October 1, and rejoiced its audience not only with the performances of local theaters, but also street productions. A total of 20 theater companies from nine countries (Austria, Moldova, Po­land, Russia, the US, Tajikistan, Hungary, Scotland, and Ukraine), took part in the forum.

Such foreign companies as the Vienna Theater TABOR, the Chisi­nau-based Chekhov Theater, the Provisorium Theater from Lublin, the Laznia Nowa and KTO from Krakow, the Witkacy Theater from Slupsk, Perm’s U Mosta Theater, the Californian Arlekin Players, the Dushanbe-based Vakhidov Theater, the Yok and Theater Company DOGSTAR from Bekescsaba have come to Lviv. Ukraine is represented by Lviv’s Voskresinnia and Les Kurbas theaters, Luhansk’s Drama Theater, Yevpatoria’s Theater of Living Sculpture, Kharkiv’s Taras Shevchenko Theater and two Kyiv companies — the Dakh and Novy theaters. The slogan of the Golden Lion Festival is “Classics through the eyes of experiment!”

The festival’s traditional venue is the Lviv Academic Spiritual Theater Voskresinnia, whose artistic director, Yaroslav Fedoryshyn, is the founder and invariable director of the Golden Lion Festival, both on stage and on the street. It should also be reminded that the festival has a national status. Besides, it is a member of the European theater forum (IETM) and the Association of international festivals (IFEA).

It is difficult to count how many companies have taken part in the Golden Lion Festival in all its years of existence. Suffice it to list the countries: Austria, Belgium, Belarus, Bulgaria, Holland, Georgia, Great Britain, Estonia, Turkmenistan, Latvia, Lithuania, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Germany, Poland, Russia, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, the US, Hungary, France, and Ukraine. One can just imagine how many stars from all over the world (actors, directors, and theater experts) Lviv has guested in all those years.

It seems that the Golden Lion-2010 will be by far the most modest in all those years, as the organizers have reduced the number of invited companies and, at the last moment, canceled the carnival, which has traditionally opened previous festivals. Why? Below is the answer to this question, in The Day’s interview with Yaroslav FEDORYSHYN [held before the festival. – Ed.].

“Though it was known that the event would be held on Friday, the Minister of Culture had not announced how much money would be allotted to fund the event,” Fedoryshyn explained to The Day. “The festival celebrates 20 years this year; this is half of my life. I have become gray at its side.”

Mr. Fedoryshyn, the same thing happens every year: the state lacks money.

“Yes, this is not new, but this year it is even more aggrieving than usual. I will hold the Golden Lion-2010, because the festival is very important in Europe. We invited to Lviv the theaters which have already visited us, won awards, and have their specific audience here. We invited them via the embassies of Austria, Russia, and Tajikistan. Thus, the Golden Lion will take place. But there are questions that should be resolved on the spot — hotels, catering, street performances, all of which need funding. I have never complained about the lack of money, but there are things that I am fed up with. However, I have been reassured by Lviv’s mayor Andrii Sadovy and the head of the Oblast State Administration Vasyl Horbal, who said, ‘Hold the festival, we will help you, and everything will be okay.’ So, I sincerely believe that the festival will take place, because people cannot live on politics alone. We have a wonderful program. I’m just praying that it will not snow.”

Why have you canceled the carnival procession, which has been the traditional opening of the festival?

“Because we lack proper funding. But the Golden Lion will begin just fine without it. We have invited (and we must have been the first in Ukraine to do so) a very interesting company, Warsaw’s Theater Happening Orchestra of Big Tambourines, whose three-meter-long instruments were made by Germans, Dutch, and Poles. There are no such tambourines even in Japan. Besides, the Alley of Living Sculptures performed by the Yevpatoria theater company awaits the Leopolitans in front of the Opera House.”

What do you consider the jest of the Golden Lion-2010?

“We have several ones. Above all, these include the unique street performance of the Krakow Theater KTO Blindness, based on the bestseller of the Nobel Prize winner Jose Saramago. Beyond doubt, Martin McDonagh’s production The Cripple of Inishmaan will draw the attention of the audience; it has won a colossal number of awards and will be shown by the mystical theater from Perm, U Mosta, directed by Sergei Fedotov (Russia). The production of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream by the Chisinau Chekhov Theater (Moldova) will also be interesting. The performance is made in a very original manner and has wonderful costumes. For what goes next, follow the program. Our aim is to reach the status of a true European Theater within 12 months, like for example the Lev Dodin or Krzysztof Warlikowski theaters. If this happens, this will be a remarkable event for Ukraine.”

TO THE POINT

This summer the theater Voskresinnia, a tireless wanderer, has visited many festivals and won many awards. Fedoryshyn considers the most important of these to be the Golden Mask, which the company won at the Vologda Festival Voices of History (Russia) for the production of Chekhov’s Cherry Orchard, and the Golden Club from the Polish festival Zamojskie Lato Teatralne, for the performance Meeting Prospero. Fedoryshyn beat directors from 22 European countries in the Belarus festival Belaya Vezha and won the award “For synthesis and drama art in two director’s editions of The Cherry Orchard.” Fedoryshyn also won the award “For unexpected solution to The Cherry Orchard” in the festival Theater. Chekhov. Yalta.