The Popeliukha (Cinderella) performance was created with the endorsement of Polish Consulate General in Kharkiv. It stars the actors from Kharkiv Taras Shevchenko Theater, Alexander Pushkin Theater, “Stel” Youth Theater, as well as students and graduates of Ivan Kotliarevsky Kharkiv National University of Arts. The general sponsor of the production is Yurii Sapronov’s Kharkiv City Charitable Fund, and “Alliance Republic” Public Movement is among the partners.
Serhii Berezhko, actor of Shevchenko Theater and also the founder and director of “Stel” Youth Theater, was the mastermind and the driving force behind the project. Actually, this case combines all the factors that should have long been the norm for the domestic theatrical life – but now they look like an exception, something rare and extraordinary: the cast was hand-picked by the director regardless of their employment, the state theater grants its premise, a strong sponsorship and international cooperation appear, and the play itself raises acute social issues (the play is about the colony for minors, in the spotlight are the ruined destinies of very young girls).
As director and author of stage design, Berezhko chose the “grand style” format. On the stage there is a giant trampoline and an equally giant screen, which displays documentary footage, clips (for example, bird flocks that can be seen through the prison bars), and on-line projection – close-ups of the characters during their monologs and dialogs. But the main “asset” of the performance are its young actors – Maria Kakurina, Vladyslava Arakelian, Yulia Vorobiova. And as the “masses” embrace the idea of the theatrical reform, we would really want to have those, whose creative life only begins, to thrive in such diverse projects (of which there should be more and more in time), and not in the stuffy air and obsolete forms of the old theater.
