No, don’t invent anything. Don’t expect a detective story. It’s just that the London tour was really fraught with danger for the theater. Now we will try to figure out, what kind of threat it was.
It is common knowledge that London is one of the most costly cities of the world, so the life in the capital of Great Britain is far from being cheap (it ranks 12th most expensive city in the world, according to the recent survey carried out by Mercer consulting firm), leaving behind New York, Los Angeles, and Moscow. However, the flow of people who want to move to the city on the Thames does not become weaker. You can read this information in any tourist reference book. But London also has another title – Europe’s theater capital. And this is true. There are more than 50 big theaters, well known in Europe, and numerous small experimental theaters, as well as rented theater venues.
“ACTORS EXCEL IN UKRAINIAN CLASSIC”
It’s not accidental that I decided to stop on these dry details. The Londoners and guests of the city have a broad choice, so the competition among the theaters is quite high. It is worth mentioning that tickets are expensive, and no one will understand you if you ask for a complimentary ticket, following an old habit. They will recommend you to reserve a place in the queue to the ticket box on the day of the performance and try to buy a ticket which hasn’t been bought out (tickets are expensive here: from 10 to 200 pounds, i.e., from 322 to 6,440 hryvnias, and they are usually booked in advance). So, for this year’s theater hit, Shakespeare’s Hamlet staged by Lindsey Turner and featuring the star of the BBC series about Sherlock Holmes Benedict Cumberbatch, the tickets have been booked a year before the premiere. Apart from that, the principles of work of the theaters are very different. There are plays that have been shown every day for several years; there are theaters working for a concrete theater project; there are also theaters that work according to a usual repertoire scheme. So, Kyiv-based Lesia Ukrainka Theater of Russian Drama, which brought to London four plays from the classical repertoire as part of the program of “Ukrainian Culture Today,” the theater found itself in a situation of a newcomer entering a strange theater territory, which has been inhabited by regular dwellers for a long time.
Incidentally, London newspapers announced that the Kyiv-based Lesia Ukrainka National Theater of Russian Drama opened its first season in London. You should admit that it is pleasant to read such thing about yourself. But it is a responsibility as well. Will the London audience buy tickets for a play by an unknown theater? And who is going to come – the British or our former compatriots? The information from the organizers of the tour was somewhat reassuring – the tickets to the first shows of Ward of the Manor (based on Ivan Turgenev’s Fortune’s Fool) have been sold out. And few tickets have been left for other shows. The first fears that the audience wouldn’t come were scattered thanks to the producers of the project. So, now we had to meet the expectations of the audience.
Those who have dealt with the foreign tours of a drama theater understand that language barrier is one of the most important problems. This is another threat such plays face. To remove this obstacle, the theater ordered original translations of the texts for all four plays. So, it was the first time that the amazingly modern text of Lesia Ukrainka’s The Stone Host (staged by Mykhailo Reznikovych) with its slightest harmonics and philosophical aspects was followed by an English synchronous translation. But later the English audience who came to the play said that thanks to the actors’ performance, director’s findings and translation, they had an opportunity to feel the philosophical aspects of Lesia Ukrainka’s text and its intense sounding to the full.
“Whose Don Juan – progenitor Tirso de Molina’s, Moliere’s or Pushkin’s?” asks theater critic of the British publication The Arts Desk David Nice and replies himself, “None of the above. Unless you have some knowledge of Ukrainian culture, you won’t have heard of Lesia Ukrainka.” Further the critic shares his discovery with the readers: Ukraine has modern dramaturgy and a European-level poetess. Incidentally, it should be noted that Mykhailo Reznikovych has many times voiced the idea of showing Lesia Ukrainka’s Stone Host and Ivan Franko’s Stolen Happiness featuring brilliant Bohdan Stupka in different European countries for 20 years. But Ukraine’s authorities have remained deaf to this idea. The director’s dream was partially realized in London thanks to the project “Ukrainian Culture Today.” The journalist notes that the main peculiarity of Ukrainian version of the legend about Don Juan is that in Lesia Ukrainka’s play (for the first time in the world literature) in the foreground there is Donna Anna, a “real feminist,” a woman who seeks power and passion. The playwright and the director make Don Juan a weaker figure. In his review the critic distinguishes the “great intensity from the nervy Anna” of Natalia Dolia, Yevhen Avdieienko’s “very masculine, charismatic Juan,” Olha Kulchytska’s “superseded Dolores,” and describes Volodymyr Rashchuk’s Commander as “both powerful and young.” According to the author “actors excel in Ukrainian classic,” yet he finds the play overloaded with symbols. Nice compares the Ukrainian production with the plays of Vakhtangov Theater (Onegin by Rimas Tuminas) and the Mossovet Theater (Uncle Vania by Andrei Konchalovsky), which have come on tour to London recently: The style is “much more involving than the incomprehensible mannerisms of three Vakhtangov Theatre productions, not as fluent as the Chekhov of Andrey Konchalovsky’s Mossovet State Academic Theatre... The actors are constantly hedged in by an often obscure symbolism which threatens to smother what they’re so eloquently saying... At least all of this is disciplined, never aimlessly cluttering up the stage.” On the whole, the review calls upon the Britons to support the Ukrainian actors and admits that after watching the play he wants to visit Kyiv.
The Public Reviews notes that it was very well-timely of Ukrainians to bring the production of Turgenev’s play A Month in the Country. Describing the scene when the leading character of Ward of the Manor Kuzovkin (Viktor Aldoshyn) was humiliated by the rich landowners, the critic underlines, “The scene involving the story of his life begins with much carousing and a feeling of equal joy in the wedding celebrations but very quickly takes a brutal turn as, plied with drink, Semionych becomes the butt of the joke... This production successfully focuses on the emotion of the characters and their inter-relationships... More than anything it leaves you with some classic philosophical lines to ponder on the way home such as ‘death is a fisherman’ and perhaps most fittingly for this play ‘life is a hard path of endless rejection.’ A memorable production.”
The same reviewer rated 3.5 the production Life’s Little Nothings based on Chekhov’s work, and The Guardian notes, “Given the bleakness of the news coming out of Ukraine, it is a pleasant shock to find a short season celebrating the country’s culture taking place at St. James Theater, London.” The author Michael Billington writes that Life’s Little Nothings (Director Kyrylo Kashlikov) was staged “with simple effectiveness” and asserts that, although the play is based on the earlier stories by the author, he “felt there were only occasional hints of Chekhov’s mature greatness.” The critic considers the story The Wallet (played by Maksym Nikitin, Yevhen Avdieienko, and Vitalii Ovcharov) especially successful and notes that he was glad to see Mykhailo Reznikovych’s works and “the robust earthiness that you often find in Slavic companies.” And critic Vera Liber, British Theater Guide, wrote that “A Tripping Tongue (literally a long tongue, in the sense of prattling too much) finds a pretty young wife (her face a picture, gorgeous Charlize Theron lookalike Anna Grynchak gives a wonderful performance) getting carried away and spilling too many beans, as she tells her older State Counsellor husband (Viktor Aldoshyn her quiet not so stupid stooge) about her trip to the Caucasus and her handsome young guide.”
“THE ENGLISH, WHO HAVE JUST GOTTEN TIRED OF SHAKESPEARE, START TO STAGE CHEKHOV”
The critics received very warmly My Mocking Happiness, a play based on Chekhov’s letters. This is not surprising: locals love Chekhov as their own writer. British theater goers joke, “The English, who have just gotten tired of Shakespeare, start to stage Chekhov.” Reviewers, paying due to the wonderful performances of Larysa Kadochnykova, Mykola Rushkovsky, Natalia Dolia, and Viacheslav Yezepov, sum up that you cannot help loving Chekhov, because through his works you can hear the voices reaching you from the bygone centuries. A London Theater journalist rated both productions of Chekhov’s works with four stars, expressing his hope that the Kyivites will come again, so that as many people as possible felt this delight. Another danger has been overcome – the London critics highly assessed the performance of the Ukrainian company. An English lady in a conversation with me quite convincingly argued that the play based on Chekhov’s works is apparently Post-Modernist.
“FROM ‘LAND’ TO ‘SHADOWS’”
A meeting with Larysa Kadochnykova took place within the framework of the Ukrainian project in London, and the film Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors was shown. The meeting and the screening were dedicated to the 90th anniversary of birth of Sergei Parajanov and the 50th anniversary of the film’s premiere. Frankly speaking, it is hard to imagine a more touching event than this meeting and a discussion after the film. It was a full house, with many Englishmen, as well as representative of the Ukrainian Diaspora present in the audience. The screening of Oleksandr Dovzhenko’s Land dedicated to the 85th anniversary since the film was shot was received with the same interest. After the screenings many people asked where DVDs with such films can be bought.
Everyone we met during the tour said that it is very important to create precedents for such communication. It is important that namely today our country that goes through the most tragic days of its history, overcoming different difficulties in its establishment, can present itself as a great culture country with a possibility of development of cultures of different nationalities, which have a developed theater culture.
