There are people without whom it is impossible to imagine a city’s cultural landscape. In Lviv, they are represented by the whole pleiad of Zankovetska Theater, including Yurii Brylynsky. He is an actor, an intellectual, a subtle connoisseur of literature and art. On March 23, the master’s benefit concert took place in Kyiv on the new Chamber Stage of the Ivan Franko Theater. The actor invited the audience to the play Old Melody (based on Vasyl Stefanyk’s short stories), dedicated to everyone who loves and appreciates the prose of the early 20th century. And on March 25 the fellows of the Lviv stage veteran from the Zankovetska National Drama Theater congratulated the actor on his 70th anniversary.
You have studied philology at the Lviv University, but already as a student embarked on the path of an actor. How did it happen?
“I have always been fond of literature and language. At that time the university had wonderful teachers of language and literature, and I started to attend their lectures with enthusiasm. My studies started when late Yevhen Lazarenko was the rector of the university. A professional geologist, he was very good at Ukrainian literature and culture, and the university was full of humanities spirit. Almost every department had a choir. We had one too, it was guided by the folklore teacher Yaroslav Shust. Student Maria Kyshkan, who was a fourth-year student then and had known me from school, told them that there was a good singer among the first-year students. That was the way I became a soloist of the department, and later university, choir and took up singing. We had regular Shevchenko Evenings, Leonila Mishchenko, who was also a director, wrote the scripts. I played Kobzar at one of those concerts. A symbolical thing, Kobzar was also my first role on the professional theater stage. As for the theater, everything started from the Creative Youth Club, which was functioning in Lviv. Les Taniuk, who came to stage his diploma production That Was the Way Huska died based on Kulish’s play, was the catalyst of the process. Taniuk came with the artist Alla Horska; we were introduced to each other by late Volodymyr Hlukhy, also graduate of our university and the theater studio, who was involved in Taniuk’s production. By the time when at the minister’s order Taniuk and Horska were recalled from Lviv and prevented from finishing the production, we already had a shaped core, which served the groundwork for the Prolisok Creative Youth Club (Mykhailo Kosiv was the chairman of the club, and I was member of the presidium). One of our first actions was a soiree in Lesia Ukrainka’s commemoration, where I took part as a reader. At that time I got acquainted with actor Bohdan Stupka who performed with Hlukhy Lesia Ukrainka’s dialogue ‘A Workhouse in Enslaved Country.’ They played brilliantly. That was the time I made friends with Stupka, too. Hlukhy and Stupka persuaded me to enter the studio. I liked the idea and took a great interest in it, but the studio was closed in 1963. What was I supposed to do? Director Volodymyr Hrypych was invited to the production of Shevchenko’s Haidamaky adapted for stage by Les Kurbas. At first it included six kobzars. Interestingly, the Latvian poetess Vizma Belsevica saw the play and wrote a poem, which says that when kobzars depart in different directions, it means a revolt. At first I played one of those kobzars, but then the actor who played Kobzar (Taras Shevchenko) Pavlo Duma from the Opera Theater got sick, I played this role – both at the premiere and after that.”
In two years you will celebrate another anniversary, 50 years of service at the Zankovetska Theater. You have played over 120 roles, including colorful ones, loved by the audience, including those in the plays Like Dames and Hussars, Casa Mare etc. Which are the most memorable for you?
“I was lucky that at the beginning of my service at the theater Mykhailo Hiliarovsky was the chief director. He believed in me and I played several roles in his productions. At that time the wonderful director and pedagogue Oleksii Ripko was working at the theater. I underwent a good actor’s school under his guidance. I consider the time when Serhii Danchenko was the chief director at the Zankovetska Theater the best period of my work. He was a very erudite man and had a wonderful aesthetic taste. It was a great pleasure to work with him, no matter the role. A very memorable work for me was the production My Word based on Vasyl Stefanyk’s short stories. We played several roles each and the show was prepared for the republican television. There was one performance at a TV studio, there were no recordings at that time, and Danchenko brought it on a theater stage, where it was shown with success many times long after that. The work on Praporonostsi (Guide-on Bearers) based on Oles Honchar’s novel was interesting, too. I played Sahaida there. Danchenko invited Volodymyr Ivasiuk to write music for this play. And I think that Serhii Danchenko’s greatest achievement as a director is Stolen Happiness after Ivan Franko’s play (I was assistant director of that production).”
Please, tell us more about the Creative Youth Club, where you were the most active participant.
“I remember the Bohdan-Ihor Antonych Poetry Soiree. The script was written by Ira and Ihor Kalynets. Ihor worked at the archives at that time and brought out a collection of Antonych’s poems for one night: we needed to copy it quickly, so we did so at the university dormitory house. I have kept the collection Lion’s Book for a long time. Bohdan Kozak and I recited Antonych’s poems at the evening. It was a huge success, because nobody knew his poetry at that time. Next day after the evening we gathered at the gate to the Yanovsky Cemetery to find Antonych’s grave. Many people came, besides the Kalynets, I remember there were Bohdan and Mykhailo Horyn, and Bohdan Stelmakh. We found the grave with the help of the funeral record book. It did not have any memorable sign, or a cross, but it was not neglected either. We found it by numeration. Two little maples were growing on Antonych’s grave and I recalled his words ‘Two lonely maples are leaned, reading the ABC of the spring.’”
Literary Lviv knows you as a connoisseur of Ukrainian and world classic literatures, modern world trends and streams, and new publications. The sense of the word, admiration of the word, have apparently caused the emergence of one more kind of your scenic work, your literary one-man shows.
“Literature has been my old-time first love. Since my grandmother was a teacher, books were read aloud in our family’s house in the evenings. Those were works by Shevchenko, Rudansky, Vasylchenko, whom we really liked to read. Besides, grandma told us different stories, in which I recognized the tales from the Bible, Jack London, Stepan Kovaliv’s stories and many others. At home we had Ukrainian General Encyclopedia. I read without stop. Back in our old home in Shulhanivka we had a small, but rare collection of such publications as Literaturno-Naukovy Visnyk (Literary-Scientific Herald), Dzvony (The Bells), Iliustrovana Ukraina (Illustrated Ukraine), Svit (The World), Nedilia (Sunday), Nova Khata (New House) and many other periodicals. We had even Zoria Halytska. Besides, we had many books on religion. I read the chimerical poems by Pavlo Tychyna, ‘Enharmoniine’ (Enharmonic) and ‘Plach Yaroslavny’ (Yaroslavna’s Lamentation) in magazines. That is why the verse by Tychyna takes the leading place among the works I read on stage. Besides, I read the works by Shevchenko, Lesia Ukrainka, and Ivan Franko. I very much like the poems by Yevhen Malaniuk, Oleh Olzhych, and among contemporary poets – Leonid Kyseliov, Vasyl Herasymiuk, Ihor Rymaruk, etc.”
The website Poetic Workshops (www.maysterni.com) carries interesting poems by your eldest daughter. Are your children attracted to the stage?
“Fortunately, none of my children are attracted to the stage. As for the literature, they are. My eldest daughter Yaryna is going to publish her book soon. My middle daughter, Nadia, has published her poems in magazines, now she is devoted to the creative work of the Nobel winner Czech poet Jaroslav Seifert, she translates his works and is writing a thesis on his oeuvre. My youngest daughter Bohdana has graduated from the Philosophy Faculty, Cultural Studies Department, she is also working on her thesis. You know, I dream about gathering everything I have published in various places and publish a book of memories about the people I have known and loved.”
