INTERVIEW: Zoloti Vorota director on theater
by Irena Koval
KYIV - There is no doubt which theater caught the critics' attention during the summer of 1995 at Edinburgh's International Theater Festival. Kyiv's Zoloti Vorota Theater earned the highest rating of five stars for its adaptation of Dostoyevsky's "Crime and Punishment, The Murderer."
The excerpts from critical reviews speak for themselves:
"This phantasmagoria is a privilege to see. It reminds us of what drama is or ought to be about." - The Scotsman.
"It is the very physical images and tight ensemble which gives the play its tremendous power...This is a highly disciplined and focused group of actors, who urge you to feel the pain as they do." - Edinburgh Evening News.
"A terrifying atmospheric piece of choric ensemble theater that taps into the post-Soviet sense of what it means to live in a moral and economic jungle, where 'power is granted only to him who dares to stoop to pick it up.'" - Scotland on Sunday.
This is the second year that theater in Kyiv is gaining recognition. Last summer two theaters were singled out at the Edinburgh festival. Theater on Podol drew plaudits and crowds with "Midsummer Night's Dream" and "Iago"; Kyiv's actress Liudmilla Limar introduced Shevchenko to Edinburgh and electrified audiences with her adaptation of "Vidma."
This writer interviewed the Zoloti Vorota Theater's artistic director, Valery Patsunov, in Kyiv.
Q: What is your reaction to the critic's ovations at the festival?
A: If I were a critic I wouldn't have been so generous with the stars. I know that our theater has room for improvement.
Q: "The Murderer" has been running in Kyiv for four years. Why did you decide to dramatize Dostoyevsky?
A: First of all, he's a genius and it's always interesting to work with a genius. Secondly, he gave me the impulse to create drama in a metaphorical direction.
Q: How did you prepare to stage your play in Edinburgh, bearing in mind that the majority of your audience would not be able to understand the words?
A: The stylistic aspect of our theater is classic and evokes the essence of the play; the emphasis is on metaphor rather than story line. Secondly, a third of the play was acted in English.
Q: One critic commented that "The Murderer" is "acted in the style of Greek theater and that intensity of passion characteristic of Russian theater. This company is Ukrainian and that identity only adds to the unbridled power of this production." Do you agree with that?
A: I don't agree with the first part. The chorus which the Greek theater introduced has undergone complex changes. In this play, for example, the chorus has taken on the function of dramatizing the environment in which Raskolnikov develops. The chorus re-enacts the inner workings of Raskolnikov's mind; his motivation is recreated by living actors.
Q: How does the phantasmagorical world of Raskolnikov mirror the current upheaval in values in Ukraine today?
A: I adapted "Crime and Punishment" five years ago, before the fall of the Soviet empire. However, there are similarities between the crisis in tsarist Russia and today's social upheaval, which in Dostoyevsky constitutes a moral crisis. The vision in "The Murderer" is apocalyptic, it speaks universally and it begins in the soul. Dostoyevsky's vision was on a different plane from an analysis of a particular social or political situation.
Q: But doesn't your play still reflect the current moral dilemma in Ukraine today?
A: Yes, the theme and conflicts certainly do run parallel with the present situation.
Q: Did you have a chance to see any other productions while you were in Edinburgh?
A: We had very little time outside of working on our own production. I did see a few American theaters, which I found lacking a spiritual dimension. However, I was impressed with the technical aspects of their production. I hope to have more free time next summer to get a fuller sense of what other theaters are offering.
Q: What are you planning to take to Edinburgh in 1996?
A: We have been invited back to stage "The Murderer." The festival organizers have heard about our staging of Albert Camus' "Caligula." So we may bring that to Edinburgh, although we still have a year to make a decision.
Q: In your estimation what is the state of theater in Kyiv today?
A: I respect the work of my colleagues in the theater because they are working under impossible conditions. In order to be an artistic director of a theater in Ukraine today one needs to tap a superhuman fund of energy. As far as traditional theaters in Kyiv go, they have already fired the remains of their arsenal; as for the new experimental theaters, they are in the throes of self-discovery and haven't found themselves yet.
Q: Directors, actors in Ukraine have very limited contact with Western theater. How does this isolation influence their work, positively and negatively?
A: I see nothing positive about the isolation. It has a very negative influence. In the Slavic world, the psychological level of theater is the highest in the world, and the West has something to learn from us. We need to learn the technical virtuosity available in the West. We have a long way to go in learning about the technical aspects of staging a play. So theater in Ukraine and theater in the West have a great many aspects with which to enrich one another.
Q: I have noticed that the theater-going public in Kyiv is, on the whole, much younger than in the West.
A: I can't make that comparison because I've been in the West so seldom. Yes, our theater public is young. You're right. There are a great many social problems facing older people here today. The last thing on their mind is theater.
Q: When American dramatist Arthur Miller was asked what the role of theater was he answered, "Life is so chaotic that there is hardly time to look closely at human nature. Theater gives the viewer a chance to look under the superficial layer of existence and understand himself and thus improve his own life." To conclude our talk, would you comment on Miller's statement?
A: I can't agree with Miller more. Theater is the only place today where a person can sit down and think about himself, his existence. Theater is the only place where a person gathers with hundreds of others; it is a refuge from solitude, from death, because a person is enriched by his sharing the experience of drama with others.
Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, March 17, 1996, No. 11, Vol. LXIV
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