In accordance with the old tradition, VIKART – Contemporary Drama Theatre – Lab presented its new show just before Christmas. I’ll tell about the performance a little later, but first a few words about theater for those viewers who come there for the first time.
VikArt theater was founded six years ago. According to social networks, the first show was held at 1. April 2017. It was a play “The Other Side”, directed by Viktor Drevitski based on the poems of Ukrainian poet Viktor Eganov.
You can tell from the enthusiasm and energy of the group members that in the first season alone there were up to ten productions at the theater!
Shows presented to the audience over the years have been “Elephant Speaks Ukrainian”, “Muhammed and I”, based on Natalka Vorožbit’s play, A. “Kaddish”, based on Galich’s poem, Marina Djatšenko’s “Square”, Polina onnellerebtsova’s “Prophet’s Daughter” and her “Chechen Diary”, “#the happiness of motherhood”, “Exodus”, “Gandhi was quiet on Saturdays” and many others.
The choice of plays (always current, always newly published and sometimes never performed anywhere, touches societal questions) is determined by the theater’s name: New Drama Theater.
Theatre (somewhere I remember it’s called “theatre laboratory”) doesn’t have a permanent group. Almost every performance is performed by new amateur actors. So the theater’s activities can also be described this way – this has been an acting school, acting laboratory, that has been going on for years (and has been very advanced).
Its director, director and actor Viktor Drevitski was born on 13. November 1955 in Kalinovka, Vinnitsa region of Ukraine. He is a theater and film actor, and has acted as an actor and director on many theater stages around the world.
Well, I’m sending you to google search for his biography, and now a few words about the new show.
For the new show, Viktor Drevitski selected two authors’ solo shows from the collection “Dictionary of feelings during war: 20 short plays from Ukrainian playwright” (Egret / Laertes Books, 2023), which was published in October this year in the United States.
This collection has its own history.
12.3.2022 the opening of the Playwright Theater was planned in Kyiv. Ukrainian playwright Maxim Kurochkin and Natalka Vorožbit, who are also known outside of their homeland, invited a large number of talented, independent, unique and diverse writers to join the theater work. Maxim Kurochkin already had a pile of short texts on his desk, which his colleagues offered to read as part of the theater’s opening.
But 24. february 2022 everything changed overnight.
In the spring of the same year, wanting to support his Ukrainian theater colleagues, John Friedman (US author, journalist and translator of dozens of Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian drama and theater) decided to organize international lectures of Ukrainian play. Through Natalka Vorožbit she found out about Maxim Kurochkin’s new plays. Maxim Kurochkin, however, refused to send any planned play for the March opening. He wrote to Friedman that these plays “already belong to another, pre-war era.” And that “it would be logical if theaters around the world ordered new plays from Ukrainian playwriters, which are written, albeit in a hurry, but about the current wartime situation”.
As a result of the efforts of John Friedman, money was found for the project and 3. In October 2023 a collection of Ukrainian plays, which have been translated into English was published.
And on December 23, 2023 in Helsinki, VikArt-theater, a two solo performance play premiered – Gritsenko’s “Kusettu Tank” as part of it and Tetiana Kitsenko’S “Tonja-eukko”.
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Oksana Gritsenko, Ukrainian journalist, playwright and screenwriter. She wrote her first play “Sanik” in 2019 after completing drama courses under Maxim Kurochkin and Anastasia Kosody. The play was chosen for the list of Ukrainian contemporary plays of the week in 2019, and it was performed under Lesja Ukrainka at Lviv Drama Theater. His second play, about Don Juan Zhashkov, was selected for the 2020 Ukrainian Contemporary Play Week. Based on this play Gritsenko wrote the script for a movie of the same name.
He also worked as a journalist for nearly 20 years covering Russia’s invasion of Georgia, Ukraine’s Euromaidan, Russia’s annexation of Crimea and Russia’s war against Ukraine.
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From the second author of the collection “The Dictionary of Feelings during War”, Drevitski chose the play “Tonja-eukko”.
Tetiana Kitsenko is a playwright and screenwriter. Specializes in social and psychological drama. Winner of numerous awards from Ukrainian Contemporary Drama Week (Kiev, 2011, 2012, 2013), Drama.UA festival (Lviv, 2012), crowning of the Word competition (Kiev, 2015), and nominee of many others.
The play “Tonja-ukko” was on the long list for the “July honey 2023” award in the category “Evening stage. Plays for grown ups.
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The plays tell with humor and empathy how the inhabitants of small villages (in one case southern Ukraine, in the other Kiev region) first look confused when Russian troops arrive to the villages to occupy them, but then they take action.
But no, I’m not telling you the plot of the play. I also don’t write about good actors and mise-en-scène (stage panorama), which Drevitski knows how to build masterfully. I don’t write about the tears and smiles, which appeared in turns on the faces of the audience. Especially those who remembered vividly their first days since the start of the full scale attack. I recommend you to go to this show. I don’t anticipate the feelings that come out of the play – it’s better if you express them yourself.
Text: Hamdam Zakirov
Photo credits to Vitaly Plutahin
Link:
A dictionary of emotions in a time of war. 20 short works by ukrainian playwrights (US, Egret / Laertes Books, 2023): https://www.laertesbooks.org/a-dictionary-of-emotions-in…
The same text in Ukrainian (thank you for helping one modest only-I-know-who): https://www.facebook.com/hamdam.zakirov/posts/pfbid0Rxe7Z8J3VSpcYRa3X7anZFB1SXiEgxYFEakEyxVaUz2R9gWnZcJ4q1SbufFKnWp9l