Bohdan Stupka and Kyiv theater troupe bring "Tevye" to U.S. (09/01/02)

Bohdan Stupka and Kyiv theater troupe bring "Tevye" to U.S.

by Helen Smindak

NEW YORK - Everyone has heard of Tevye, the Jewish dairyman from the fictional village of Anatevka in Ukraine. He is the main character in Sholom Aleichem's heart-wrenching saga of Jewish life in Ukraine in the early 20th century, when Ukraine was still under tsarist Russia's rule. He is the endearing principal character of the long-running Broadway musical "Fiddler on the Roof," based on Aleichem's play, that was made into a popular movie by Norman Jewison in 1971.

Tevye was brought to life again earlier this month in a two-city U.S. tour by the Ivan Franko National Academic Drama Theater of Kyiv, with award-winning Ukrainian actor and former Minister of Culture for Ukraine Bohdan Stupka in the title role.

"Tevye the Dairyman," which received top honors at drama festivals in Ukraine (Berezil '90, Berezil '93), Russia and Germany, was the choice of the Kyiv Theater and its sponsors when plans were drawn up for a touring vehicle that would promote Ukrainian culture before the American public.

In New York, the two-act play was staged on August 2 and 3 at Brooklyn's Millennium Theater in Brighton Beach, the home of this city's Russian/Jewish immigrant population that's popularly referred to as "Little Odessa." The U.S. tour, which closed in Chicago on August 4, included a program and reception at the Ukrainian Institute of America on August 1.

Technically a drama, the production - presented in Ukrainian - was enlivened by Jewish songs and dances, clarinet and violin solos, and recorded music. Subtle lighting effects were used to indicate scene changes and moods, further enhancing the presentation.

A stunning performance

Portraying the hard-working, philosophical, good-humored Tevye, Mr. Stupka gave a stunning performance as he interpreted the joys and sorrows in the life of a Jewish dairyman who works long hours to provide a simple home for his family. A loving husband and father of five daughters, Tevye celebrates the Jewish Sabbath with age-old rituals, socializes with friends and neighbors, searches for appropriate suitors for his three eldest daughters (Tzeitel, Hodel and Chava), and stays within the rules of village administration.

In a break with tradition, Tevye's daughters refuse to accept the wishes of the matchmaker and their father, and insist on marrying the men they love. Meanwhile, Russians are instigating terrible pogroms against the Jewish people in Russia. In a poignant finale, the Jews of Anatevka are forced to leave their homes and Tevye is determined to start a better life in a new land.

The empathetic portrayals by Stupka and the company of distinguished artists, choristers and dancers brought smiles and tears by turns to the near-capacity audience at the Millennium, which seats 1,500. So spell-binding was the drama in its intensity of feeling that the audience was barely aware of huge thunderclaps that rumbled overhead, part of a fierce wind and rain storm that lashed the metropolitan New York area that evening.

Tevye's stubborn wife, Golde, was played by National Artist of Ukraine Natalia Lototska, while the part of Perchik, a student revolutionary who falls in love with daughter Hodel, was enacted by Stupka's son, Honored Artist of Ukraine Ostap Stupka. Other principal roles were portrayed by Elizaveta Slutska (Tzeitel), Vasyl Mazur (the butcher, Lazar Wolf, who wants to marry Tzeitel), Aleksander Shkrebtienko (Motel, the young tailor Tzeitel loves), Iryna Doroshenko (Chava), Oleksii Bohdanovych (Chava's Gentile suitor Fedir), and Oleh Shavarskyi (the village constable).

The cast also included Ludmila Smorodina, Yevhen Shakh, Volodymyr Abazopulo, Natalia Omelchuk, Volodymyr Koliada, Oleksii Pietukhov, Serhii Semenov and Natalia Perchevska, plus choristers and dancers. Two young girls from Kyiv who now live in Brighton Beach filled the roles of Tevye's youngest daughters, Shprintze and Bielke.

Officials of the Consulate General of Ukraine in New York - Serhiy Pohoreltzev accompanied by his wife, Svitlana, and Dr. Natalia Martynenko - and a sprinkling of Ukrainian Americans from other boroughs and from out of town were in the opening night audience, which appeared to be composed mainly of Brighton Beach residents.

Aleichem's elderly granddaughter, author Belle Kaufman, came on stage during the evening to receive a bouquet of flowers and tell the cheering crowd that her grandfather would have been delighted that so many people came to see his play - "he would have been happy to stand here in my place, he loved you all."

Flowers were also presented to Mr. Stupka as the performers stepped forward at the play's end to take numerous bows and acknowledge bravos and wild applause.

Addressing the audience in Ukrainian before the start of the play, the director of the Ivan Franko National Academic Drama Theater director, Mykhailo Zakharevych welcomed the public and "our friends from the diaspora," and thanked the sponsors - Ukraine International Airlines and Western Union - for making the tour possible.

An evening with Stupka

Proceedings at the Ukrainian Institute, opened by Dr. Martynenko, centered around Mr. Stupka as a leading actor and the artistic director of the Kyiv troupe. He introduced several colleagues who were present that evening, discussed the achievements of his year-and-a-half term as Ukraine's minister of culture and fielded questions from the audience.

Mr. Stupka and Mrs. Doroshenko performed an excerpt from Ivan Franko's play "Ukradene Schastia" (Stolen Fate), and Ms. Lototska, Ostap Stupka, Volodymyr Kudelia and Mr. Shakh offered sketches from plays by Stanislav Vitkevych and Ivan Karpenko-Kary. Poems of Taras Shevchenko, Franko and Pavlo Hlazovyi were presented in dramatic recitation by actor Oleksij Palamarenko.

Bohdan Stupka, born in Kulykiv, Lviv region, in 1941, studied at the drama studio of the Lviv Ukrainian Drama Theater and worked there as a leading actor until 1977, with a break from 1968 to 1973 for studies at the Kyiv Institute of Theater Arts. He joined the Ivan Franko National Academic Drama Theater in 1978. His stage repertoire includes farce, satirical comedy, contemporary plays and tragedy, including Shakespeare's "Richard lll" and Edmund in "King Lear." Among his film credits are "A White Bird with a Black Mark" (1972), "The Pipers" (1980) and "The Red Bells" (1982).

More recently, he has become known for his brilliant performance as Tevye the Dairyman in the play which the Kyiv drama theater premiered in Kyiv in 1989, has performed almost 300 times and will present in September at a festival of Jewish culture in Moscow. Mr. Stupka stars in the title roles of two new Ukrainian films: the Dovzhenko Studio film "Genghis Khan" (January 2002) and "A Prayer for Hetman Mazepa," due to be released in the fall of this year.

Yiddish writer Sholom Aleichem, although generally referred to by the public and press as a Russian Jew, was born Sholom Rabinovich in the Ukrainian province of Poltava, in Pereiaslav (now Pereiaslav-Khmelnytskyi). He was a rabbi in Lubni (1880-1883) before moving to Kyiv and then to Odesa, where he devoted his time to writing and publishing novels, stories and plays. Most of his work depicts shtetl (Jewish town or village) life in Ukraine and includes Ukrainian proverbs, folk songs and folklore, and Ukrainian characters (children, workers and revolutionaries). In 1905 he traveled to England, the United States, Switzerland, Germany and Italy, finally settling in New York City in 1914, where he died two years later.

Aleichem's plays have been staged in Ukraine by Ukrainian directors such as Les Kurbas, and Ukrainian films have been made based on his works. A memorial museum was founded in Pereiaslav-Khmelnytskyi in 1978 and a monument was erected there in his honor in 1984.

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