Lviv boom in Melikhovo

For the tenth year in a row Zankovetska Theater participated in the international festival “Melikhovo Spring.” Each time the plays produced by Alla Babenko move the audience, and theater critics (speaking individually) confess they experienced a catharsis. Every year, Alla Babenko prepares a surprise specially for the forum, interpreting works from the creative heritage of Anton Chekhov in her own way, very subtly and unexpectedly. The play My Life was presented at “Melikhovo Spring-2010,” and impressed Chekhov researchers from different countries.

“Our festival outgrew the traditional spring theater feasts which have been held in the museum-mansion since 1982. Directors and actors always aspired for Melikhovo, ever since Chekhov worked here, and it was here that the foundations of Russian psychological theater were laid down. Theaters of different levels, ranging from academic to students’, are glad to show their versions of Chekhov’s plays at ‘Melikhovo Spring,’” said director-general of the museum-mansion Konstantin BOBKOV. “This is a unique theater feast in which only pieces based on plays by Chekhov or dedicated to the life and creative activity of the writer are shown. No ‘Melikhovo Spring’ is without a production of The Seagull, written by Chekhov in Melikhovo.”

For Chekhov’s jubilee 18 different productions from theaters of Russia, Ukraine, France, Belarus, Bulgaria, and Spain were represented at the festival. For instance, the Moscow Theater Hermitage staged Secret Notes of a Privy Councilor, the Odesa Drama Theater showed their version of Uncle Vanya, the Lviv Spiritual Theater Resurrection played The Cherry Orchard, and Zankovetska Lviv Theater came with My Life. Theater versions of the story Bride was represented by two collectives – the Moscow Theater Benefis and Chekhov Chamber Theater from Madrid, and the International Chekhov Laboratory brought The Seagull. According to Bobkov, the festival is a part of the project on creating a museum-theater complex in Melikhovo, within the framework of which the theater “Chekhov Studio” already functions here. Also, a building for the International Theater School is about to be erected there.

“The festival ‘Melikhovo Spring’ seeks to demonstrate all the variety of theatrical interpretations of works by Anton Chekhov. Therefore, its program includes chamber plays, large-scope adaptations, classic productions and avant-garde versions. Such an approach represents modern theater in all its variety to the audience,” stressed Vladimir BAYCHER, director of the festival.

“We haven’t had a success like this yet,” said, over the phone, Alla Babenko to The Day. “Traditionally at the festival, after the performance, critics hold a round table, discussing what they saw (unfortunately, I couldn’t come to Melikhovo, since currently I was finishing rehearsals of the play Love and Intrigue by Schiller). Our actors brought a record in which the leading Chekhov researchers of our time participated. You know, it was very pleasant for me to hear their praise, and I was even a bit uncomfortable because of the stream of highest epithets about the performance. My Life was already invited to several other theater festivals in Taganrog, Krasnodar, and to ‘Zolotoy Vitiaz’ in Moscow. I want to thank the ambassador of Russia in Ukraine Mikhail Zurabov for the financial assistance he provided so that our actors could go to Melikhovo” (see The Day issue 76). They happened to perform in the historic location – Chekhov’s museum-mansion. Before us nobody staged My Life (A Tale of an Intellectual), there was only a cinema interpretation of this work in the 1970s by directors Grigorii Nikulin and Viktor Sokolov. A ‘star’ team was involved in the movie: Stanislav Liubshyn, Alisa Freindlich, Vatslav Dvorzhetsky, Margarita Terekhova and others. I created my own version of the story, adapting it to the chamber stage. Two of our actors take part in the performance: Yurii Chekov (Misail) and Maria Shumeiko (Maria Viktorovna). If Yurii is an experienced actor already and my assistant in productions, Maria can be called a debutant, since she’s worked in Zankovetska Theater just for two years. But this young actress has big potential and talent. I’m glad that critics highly evaluated the work of our actors, pointing out the ‘subtle psychological insight in disclosing the images performed.’ They played with dignity at the festival dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the classic, which included companies not only from Russia and Ukraine, but also from West European countries.”

“This year ‘Melikhovo Spring’ was held for the 11th time, and our theater participated in it for the 10th time. The audience is always eager to see Alla Babenko’s productions,” told The Day Yurii Chekov, actor of Zankovetska Theater. “I performed in the museum-mansion for the third time (in 2008 we showed Ionych, last year – A Story of a Stranger, and presently My Life), and every time I’m anxious. The mansion is a symbolic place, where Anton Chekhov lived and created. One can feel the spirit of the writer; here his Ukrainian genes come out: fences, the garden he planted. Everything is so close and native, reminding one of a Ukrainian village. At each festival we’re asked: ‘Is it difficult to play Chekhov in Ukrainian?’ ‘How does Babenko manage to interpret the hackneyed material, for example, Ionych, with unexpected subtly and precision?’ Critics are meditating ‘What is the secret of Chekhov’s productions by Zankovetska Theater?’ stating with surprise that our plays are viewed smoothly, listening attentively to each word, forgetting that ‘Anton Chekhov didn’t write in Ukrainian – so organic do his works seem in Babenko’s productions.’

“Chekhov’s language is very picturesque and melodious. For example, when Alla Babenko decided to stage A Tale of a Stranger, my colleague actress Albina Sotnykova and I made a Ukrainian translation of this story. I suppose that Chekhov in Ukrainian sounds very organic. The work of the classic has a direct relation to the culture of not only Russia, but our country as well. Chekhov’s ancestors lived in Kharkiv province, and in one of his letters Anton Chekhov wrote: ‘In my veins Ukrainian blood flows’ (the writer’s grandmother Yefrosynia Shymko was a Ukrainian). He also stayed in Sumy (the Chekhovs spent spring and summer of 1888-89 at Luk – the dacha of the Lintvariovs landowners), and later moved to Yalta from Moscow due to health problems – pulmonary tuberculosis.

“The works of the classic are close and clear to people of different nationalities. My Life is a tale with different story lines, Babenko never makes pure adaptations, preserving prosaic text, shortening it, and most importantly – rebuilding its composition – and reaches a level that amazes even Chekhov scholars. The texts, read countless times, start sparkling with new facets in her productions.

“In this play we tell how to find and keep happiness, about love, like a haven-ship; but the characters’ paths diverge. During the discussion critics said many sympathetic words about the production, particularly pointing out that ‘it’s a very Chekhov-like play.’ A few theatric festivals want to see My Life. We were invited to perform in the writer’s homeland in Taganrog, we are welcome in Krasnodar and Moscow. A tour in the Crimea and Yalta Forum remains an open-ended question (let’s remind that for the play Rereading Chekhov in 2008 actors of Zankovetska Theater received the grand prize at the First international festival ‘Theater. Chekhov. Yalta.’ – Author).”

Russian critics said that this year in Melikhovo “A Lviv landing operation took place”: the theater Resurrection opened the festival by the mystery-play The Cherry Orchard (director Yaroslav Fedoryshyn). Then the creative relay was picked up by actors of Zankovetska Theater. The audience will remember each of the works for a long time.