Artistic impressions which stay in your memory and soul for a long time are not so frequent. The play from the Chamber Stage of the Ivan Franko Theater, Morituri te Salutant (There is Always a Holiday for Us) based on Vasyl Stefanyk’s short stories and staged by director Dmytro Bohomazov, was one of such shakes for many viewers and critics last year.
The play touches upon all strings of Ukrainian national mentality. It paradoxically marries tragic, comic, and dramatic things into a harmonious unity. The actors masterfully create the miniatures of human types, and beyond that the Ukrainian people’s character gets outlined, and we all start to understand something and feel it in ourselves.
Morituri te salutant won this year’s Kyiv Pectoral and Bronek awards as the best drama play (official and family awards showed unanimity).
It will be recalled that the Kyiv Pectoral Award was founded in 1992 by the Kyiv Department of the Society of Theater Workers of Ukraine (currently the National Society of Theater Workers of Ukraine). Later the Main Department of Culture and Arts of KMDA (currently KMDA Department of Culture) joined in as a co-founder. For the first time Kyiv Pectoral awarding ceremony was held on March 27, 1993 on the International Theater Day based on the seasons of 1991 and 1992. Over all years of its existence the brightest theater artists of Ukraine’s capital have been receiving this award on an annual basis.
Sometimes the scenic holiday happens in different theaters of Ukraine. For example, the monumental Blind based on Shevchenko/Kropyvnytsky’s work in Donetsk, Tempest by Ostrovsky in Makiivka, Tartuffe by Moliere in Dniprodzerzhynsk, Gogol. Search in Kyiv New Theater in Pechersk, Beautiful Beast in the Heart in Suziria. The Kyiv Theater of Drama and Comedy on the Left Bank of the Dnipro presented for the audience a lab of young directors – Eduard Mytnytsky’s students staged their first plays. There were debuts of directors in other Kyiv theaters. A step to holiday is the slogan of the Kyiv Theater of Operetta, and it is successfully making it, having produced two faerie premieres. And this list can be continued.
However, on the whole the creative process of the past theater year was not especially impressive. Probably, it looked so in the background of Maidan, where real hot human blood was shed, not the theater “cranberry juice.” When theaters in Kyiv were closed, and it was hard to reach them, because the subway did not work. Anyway, some of the directors and actors continued to work and rehearse.
So, let’s rejoice at the talented things that happened in spite of the cruelty of life. Actually, theater is called to give people the joy of creative work and beauty of art.
The experts of Kyiv Pectoral watched all new plays (a total of 75) in the capital’s
theater. Many artists got the awards in 14 categories on the International Theater Day.
The family Bronek awarding ceremony (in honor of the outstanding actor Amvrosii Buchma) was held earlier, on March 14 in the House of Actor. There were no categories: if the jury saw something outstanding, it gave the award, having explained its choice. So, Dmytro Bohomazov became the Bronek-2013 winner for his play Morituri te salutant, which was mentioned above.
Ten more artists were let into the “Buchmenkos’ circle.” The work of young actor from Young Viewer Theater in Lypky Oleksii Petrozhytsky is a talented beginning of a creative path. His theater debut was Romeo (preamble of three rehearsals), then Puck (Midsummer Night’s Dream), Yasha (Cherry Orchard), Holden Caulfield (Above the Abyss based on Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye), etc. As we can see, the actor has a wide range of roles. As a first year student of Kyiv Children’s Academy of Arts this boy formulated the notion of art: “beauty created by man.”
For talented combination of verse and drama in the one-man show Beautiful Beast in the Heart based on Mykola Vinhranovsky’s poetry (Suziria) Yevhen Nyshchuk, called the voice of Maidan, currently the minister of culture, was let in “Buchmenkos’ Circle.” Yevhen admitted that in student years he was nicknamed Buchma for his love for pauses.
Young Theater actress Viktoria Avdieienko entered the “Buchmenko Circle” for a number of roles she played over the past few years. Viktoria once successfully overcame the paradoxes of theater of absurd in Valerii Bilchenko’s experimental, mastered stilts in open-air shows. A beautiful woman, she turned out to be an acutely character actress as well.
The actor duo of Nadia Kondratovska and Nina Nizheradze was awarded for team work in the play of Lesia Ukrainka Russian Drama Theater D-r. Their heroines Protych and Spasoievych are the zest of the play.
Lev Somov for the second time joined the good company for staging plastics in the play of the Theater on the Left Bank What Women Want? The farce comedy based on Old Greek texts modernized by Andrii Bilousov walks a fine line, but this is beauty and happiness of human body, the genuineness of human nature.
The whole lineup of the play of the New Theater in Pechersk Gogol. Search was awarded with Bronek Award as an integral phenomenon of scenic art. Masha Gurina, a choreographer from England, together with the actors and Ukrainian producer Valerii Chyhliaiev created a phantasmagorical version of Gogol’s Dykanka, she created nature from man. They were awarded for creative shattering of culture myths.
Artistic director of Kyiv Operetta Bohdan Strutynsky was awarded for thorough restoration of the theater’s creative image. For several years he has been heading the operetta, where talented youth started to shine, older stars have been preserved, the operetta cliches have almost vanished, and the paradoxical logic of the genre has been justified.
In the Off Kyiv format Bronek-2013 went to Tartuffe by Moliere – the play staged by the director of the Dniprodzerzhynsk-based Lesia Ukrainka Theater Serhii Chulkov, who these days celebrates an anniversary. We congratulate the director on the anniversary. The play is very funny and at the same time scary, it was masterfully performed by the talented actor lineup. Liubov Kolesnykova, an actress of Chernihiv-based Shevchenko Theater entered the “Buchmenkos’ Circle” for the role of Mother in the play A Cripple of Inishmaan. The actress was awarded not only for her talented performance, but also for her woman’s courage – she did not spare her nice appearance for the image of a monster.
Today the theater is celebrating its holiday. It’s a holiday in itself. In spite of everything it creates holiday for itself and for all of us. Let’s celebrate because we are worth of it.
Winners of the Kyiv Pectoral Theater Award
♦ Best Drama Play Category: Morituri te salutant (Ivan Franko Theater)
♦ Best Music Play Category: Swan Lake. Modern Version (Kyiv Modern Ballet)
♦ Best Children’s Play Category: Swan Princess (Young Theater)
♦ Best Chamber Play Category (small stage play): Beautiful Beast in the Heart (Suziria Theater)
♦ Best Director Category: D. Bohomazov, Morituri te salutant (Ivan Franko Theater)
♦ Best Set Design Category: O. Druhanov, Morituri te salutant (Ivan Franko Theater)
♦ Best Actor Category: O. Vertynsky for the role of Erik Larsen in Mysterious Variations (Young Theater), Yevhen Nyshchuk for the role of Mykola Vinhranovsky in Beautiful Beast in the Heart (Suziria Theater)
♦ Best Actress Category: Nadia Kondratovska, Mother in Promise at Dawn (Domino-Art producing company)
♦ Best Soundtrack Category: S. Karpenko, Morituri te salutant (Ivan Franko Theater)
♦ Best Choreography: O. Semioshkina, Morituri te salutant (Ivan Franko Theater)
♦ Best Supporting Actor: V. Basha, Morituri te salutant (Ivan Franko Theater)
♦ Best Supporting Actress: V. Tchaikovska, Professor’s Wife, Shindai, Theater of Young Viewer
♦ Best Debuting Actor: V. Pysarenko, A Monster (Theater of Drama and Comedy)
♦ Best Debuting Director: V. Sotnichenko, A Monster (Theater of Drama and Comedy)
