LVIV – The Christmas and New Year holidays are always marked by numerous events in Lviv. Of all the numerous events (traditionally staged in the very heart of Lviv, the Rynok Square) the street performance “Christmas Extravaganza” performed by the actors of the Voskresinnia Theater. Although this year’s production is by no means a premiere (Voskresinnia has been staging this spectacular performance on winter holidays for several years now), the audience found this one particularly beautiful. Why? Maybe because the Voskresinnia Theater just marked its 20th anniversary.
Director Yaroslav Fedoryshyn founded Voskresinnia in 1990. The theater quickly won the audience’s recognition, and not only. Critics also praised the team and its consistent search of expressive theatric language, as well as specific scenic forms, and mentioned that Voskresinnia’s creative exploration merges the traditions of psychological theater with modern theater form. At the moment Voskresinnia is one of the brightest theaters in Ukraine, giving 190 performances a year, out of which 100 are abroad. Its repertoire includes the productions of works by August Strindberg, Anton Chekhov, Luigi Pirandello, Harold Pinter, Lesia Ukrainka, Sam Shepard, Bernard-Marie Koltes, Lord Byron, Oscar Wilde, William Shakespeare and performances based on Fedoryshyn’s scenarios. The theater works off stage, and the audience is enchanted by the atmosphere, actors’ playing, and various effects of its street performances, like Gloria, Holy and Sinful Things, Job, and The Cherry Orchard, which make the audience ponder the beautiful things that exist in ourselves, and beyond us.
Over these 20 years the theater has been gladly welcomed at many international theater festivals: Edinburg (Scotland), Cairo (Egypt), Trabzon (Turkey), Kosice (Slovakia), Maribor (Slovenia), Belgrade (Serbia), Holzminden (Germany), Linz (Austria), Moscow and Archangelsk (Russia), Hwacheon (Korea), and Gdansk, Warsaw, Kalisz, Lublin, Wroclaw and other cities of Poland.
Theater buffs also know that Voskresinnia has been holding its own International Golden Lion Theater Festival for the past 20 years, which has been attended by 500 theaters from over 80 countries. I will also note that Voskresinnia is a member of the International European Theater Forum (IETM) and the Association of International Theater Festival (IFEA).
The artistic director, actor and stage director of the Voskresinnia Theater Yaroslav FEDORYSHYN spoke with The Day about stage experiments, surprises for the audience, integrity and the vertical of power in theater.
“They say that a theater cannot live for more than 20 years, as it loses creative strength. This is partially true,” Fedoryshyn says, “In our time we experienced a quite complicated period, when not many audience came to see our plays (maybe, this was caused by the city’s crisis). Now the company is in good shape. Our latest performances (The Cherry Orchard, Meeting Prospero, A Broken Heart) enable us to keep to the track we once chose. Recently we have been joined by six new actors, owing to the new status of ‘academic’ theater, so I am creating an ensemble theater. And it does not matter whether we will stage The Cherry Orchard or Hamlet, or any other play, for me the most important is how my ensemble will feel in a given time, how they will help each other.”
From the onset you positioned yourselves as a spiritual theater. Why?
“In the early 1990s we wanted very much to stage many classical works, which had not been staged before for some or other reason. And we said to ourselves that we should have a strong code. First of all it should be light and spiritual. As a result our company came together not according to our diplomas, but according to our souls’ call. Every classical work is in some way spiritual, telling about the global, eternal truth. That is why we called our theater a spiritual one. And we called it Voskresinnia (Revival), because all of us are believers, in the theatric meaning of the word. We keep to the principle of verbal communication. We are not as interested in texts as in the emotions and energy of an author. In our opinion, a text becomes organic only when it is connected with global things. Then it creates a certain purely theatric atmosphere on stage. This is what our little kitchen looks like. We abide by our principles, and our successful performances at many international festivals prove that we have chosen the right path.”
You said that your theater has gathered people with various specializations. Does it mean that not all of your actors have theatrical education?
“Almost all of our actors have theatrical education, it’s just that the schools are different — Kyiv, Kharkiv, Moscow, Lviv… Clearly, they were taught by different teachers with different approaches to the voice, body and emotions of an actor. And clearly, I bring in some corrections, because I am building an associative theater. The plot line emerges later. That may be the reason why our performances are unclear for some people, even difficult, but this is my direction, my creative work, and I am leading our entire company according to this belief.”
How quickly do actors adapt to your theater?
“A year may pass. Then they say, ‘Aha, this is so simple.’ As for me, it is good, because it is not interesting when an actor is from the very beginning sure that he knows what to do and how to do it. Theater is always cheating. We cheat the audience, but in a good sense, for the sake of goodness. One should always take into consideration what energy the audience receives. As a matter of principle, we don’t stage plays, because there is too much filth in our lives. When I read the works of such teachers as Stanislavsky, Nemirovich-Danchenko or Vakhtangov, I compare them with our present days (they lived in Gurdzhiev’s times; they were sophists and attached great importance to this). Similarly, all frameworks of various theories are open nowadays, if we know that there was a land of Maya people who knew magic, if we know about quantum physics, which says that everything is based on the waves, and we are not more than a material grain of sand. Therefore creating life on stage, without taking into account things that are connected with energy, is impossible. That is why I familiarize my actors with new streams, make them re-discover themselves, because this is Eternity.”
They say that you may accept to the company (at least for an internship) people who are not schooled as actors.
“Yes, I have been practicing this since the theater was founded. For example, Slava Riepin returned to the theater — he does not have an actor’s diploma. But sometimes a non-professional actor possesses such a charisma that he does not need special education. Volodymyr Kolchynsky (unfortunately deceased now), who used to work in our theater, was not a professional actor. But he was an actor who stayed in the people’s memory at once: the audience liked his appearance and charisma. Therefore we accept non-qualified actors, because this is one more opportunity to reveal a very interesting creative personality.”
The head of Zankovetska Theater Fedir Stryhun always says that your theater is a family one. What can you say about this?
“All people working in my theater, not only actors, say that we are all like one family. But it seems wrong to me. Maybe we are all partisans. I mean that each of us of course thinks differently, but we all are united by one faith, purely theatrical. Some may call me a dictator — there is a vertical of power in my theater. I was taught this by my teachers, and can’t do otherwise. Directing is a complicated profession. And a director’s mastery consists above all in making an actor do exactly what he needs him to do. We work much. There were times when we staged one play in a year. And now our productions are very quick, maybe because we already have an understanding on a subconscious level.”
What made you put your actors on stilts?
“There are many stiltwalkers in Ukraine, for example in Yevpatoria and Kyiv. And maybe they can do on stilts much more than we. But they stage single numbers, whereas we stage whole performances. At the moment we are the only theater in Ukraine that stages big-scale street drama performances. Such productions have colossal prospects. This is an extraordinary atmosphere, a different plane, a different way of thinking. This a different genre, taught both in America, and Europe. How have we come to this? I have seen many wonderful big-scale performances in Russia, Germany, and France (Derevo, Antagon, Malabara). And I was immensely impressed by them. These are theaters uniting circus, gymnastics, dancing, and drama. And we decided to try this.”
Once you raised a question on creating a street theater in Lviv.
“I raise this question before the authorities every year. But, unfortunately, we have not yet come to agreement on how this project will be funded. I wanted to be not a branch of Voskresinnia, but a new oblast theater. I think there is a need for such a theater, because the audience likes this genre. In Europe such theaters perform in huge hangars (20 by 30 meters) in summer and in winter, and the entry fee is very high, even exceeding 1,000 dollars. And a total of 4,000 people from all over the world may come to such a performance.”
You have seen half the world, have many awards from prestigious theater festivals. Besides, for 20 years in succession, you have been organizing the wonderful Golden Lion Festival, which has a status of international festival. Now you are involved in creating a street theater. What would you wish to yourself? Do you have any cherished dream?
“I wish myself only one thing: health. I have not done a lot and I don’t know many things. I cannot catch up with everything. If I will be healthy, I will be able to plan, and most importantly, implement some interesting things. Maybe this year we will acquire the status of European theater.”
The Day’S FACT FILE
Yaroslav FEDORYSHYN graduated from the Kharkiv Institute of Arts, later studying at GITIS (where he was taught by Anatoly Efros; he also warmly recalls his other teachers: Mikhail Tumanishvili, Boris Morozov, Roza Sirota, Joseph Reichelhouse). He underwent an internship in Poland, where his supervisor was the renowned director Krzysztof Zanussi. In 1990 he founded the Lviv Spiritual Theater Voskresinnia and remains its artistic director. Fedoryshyn also organizes and is a regular head of the International Theater Festival “Golden Lion.”
