Don’t mistake Masoch for Sade!
Venus in Furs, based on Leopold von Sacher-Masoch’s title novel, premieres at Zankovetska Theater in Lviv
LVIV — Says the stage director, People’s Artist of Ukraine Taisia Lytvynenko: “I took up Venus in Furs not because Masoch was in vogue. My son had presented me with a copy of the novel. Reading it, I came across Wanda’s monologue about her father and thought this could be my monologue. My father adored me, he made gorgeous skirts and sarafan pinafores for me. On my 16th birthday he gave me a pair of fashionable shoes, and on my 20th birthday I received a fur coat. Although it wasn’t sable but synthetic fur, it was white, bought in Paris, and it was beautiful! I really felt like a queen wearing it. They called me Tsarina Yosypova in the village. I’m the way I am precisely because the relationships between me and my parents were so warm and sincere. I meant Venus to focus not so much on sex as on education, in other words on moral aspects. Masoch wrote: ‘Throughout history it has always been a serious deep culture which has produced moral character. Man, even when he is selfish or evil, always follows ‘principles,’ woman never follows anything but ‘impulses.’ Don’t ever forget that, and never feel secure with the woman you love.’”
Taisia Lytvynenko adds that she would like people in the audience to feel like reading the novel after watching the play, so they wouldn’t mistake Sacher-Masoch for Marquise de Sade.
Venus in Furs has a small cast, just four actors, and the stage director had only one cast in mind when working on the play. Small wonder, considering that every actor shows perfect dramatic identification: Merited Artist of Ukraine Albina Sotnykova (Wanda), Andrii Voitiuk (Severin), Andrii Snitsarchuk (Leopold von Sacher-Masoch), and Oleksandr Norchuk (Greek Alexis Papadopolis).
It should be noted that the audience also enjoyed the soundtrack, especially the songs performed by
Mariana Sadovska, popularly known as the Ukrainian Bjork (incidentally, she used to live in Lviv). Add here the excellent translation from the German done by another Leopolitan, Natalka Ivanychuk. After watching the play, she said, “There is a definite ironical touch to this production and I especially liked to see the actors enjoy themselves rather than suffer, make fun of each other, being sarcastic even about important sentiments.”
Lytvynenko remembers that the rehearsals were “remarkably easy and my impression is that the play begins and ends as easily, lasting two and a half hours non-stop.”
This is the first stage production of Venus in Furs in Lviv — “maybe in Ukraine, as well,” proposes Lytvynenko. After the premiere she is busy working on three productions: Chekhov’s The Lady with the Dog (a benefit performance for Zankovetska’s Yaroslav Muka), Blue Rose, based on Lesia Ukrainka’s title play, and French Miniatures, where, she says, “everything will be important: plastique, songs, even the rustling of sheets of paper.”
