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learn how to explain to them what I wanted. I didn’t want them to recite the poetry, or illustrate its content. Rather, I wanted them to create scenes which would allow the poem to exist as text in the space. Slowly we worked out how to talk to the Ukrainian actors about our experimental theatre ideas. The second set of work shops in Lviv benefited from this experience. For our third workshop in Kharkiv, we brought with us those actors from Kiev and Lviv we cast in our play. On our day off I took two of them with me on a short trip to the village where Skovoroda died. On the way back we stopped at the Slovo Building. The building was now being renovated. There was a plaque on the front that listed the names of all the writers who once lived there. The courtyard was no longer as grey or as muddy. The three of us stood looking up at the windows of the building. I started to talk to my two actors, a young woman from Lviv and a young man from Kiev, and I saw Kurbas and Tychyna return to Kharkiv in their eyes. I knew then we had finally broken through all the cultural barriers that divided us. I could now created theatre with these actors. In August eight more Yara members, including actors, designers and the composer — Roman Hurko, arrived in Kiev for the rehearsals. Together with the seven Ukrainian actors chosen from the workshops, we created the new bilingual production. During this two- week period the actors worked on staging the scenes and poetry in Ukrainian and English to create a dia logue between the two languages on stage. We also created a new opening scene so that people in Ukraine could understand how it was that a group of young Americans became fascinated with Kurbas and created a new theatre piece based on his diaries and Tychyna’s poetry. We also included the dreams of the Ukrainian actors. By the end of the rehearsel period we also deve loped a unique form of communication which we called “Yara”. Although there were very few bilinguals individ uals among the cast and crew of 40 people, everyone managed to somehow talk to everyone else. Ellen Stewart, the artistic director of La Mama and the mother of international experimental theatre, arrived the week before we opened our show in Kiev. With Ellen we visited Larysa Khorolets, the Minister of Culture of Ukraine, who promised to support further cultural ex change. Ellen also spoke at the press conference about the project. She opened by saying that La Mama existed today because 30 years ago also a Ukrainian landlord in New York was willing to rent her, an African America, the space where she first started her theatre, initiated the first Ukrainian-American joint theatre project. She then introduced me, as well as, Sergei Proskurnia, Volodymyr Kuchinsky and Anatoli Starodub, the direc tors of the three theatres in Ukraine that took part in the project. Our press conference took place on August 19th — the day of the putsch. Surprisingly, a lot of reporters attended and parts of the conference were aired on TV that day. That morning we had a company meeting and decided to continue our rehearsals despite the political events. The Ukrainian actors were very moved by the fact that the Americans seemed more concerned for the safety of their Ukrainian co-workers than for their own. That day brought us even closer as a group. We opened IN THE LIGHT at the Franko Theatre in Kiev on August 24th. The line for tickets was increadibly long, the audience reaction — overwhelming. Lina Kos tenko, Ukraine’s most prominent poet, called it “drama for the 21st century.” Those were heady days — the coup collapsed, the Parliament proclaimed Ukraine’s independence. After two more sold out shows, we put up our sets, costumes and baggage on a train and headed for Kharkiv. We performed our show on the Berezil Stage of the Shevchenko Theatre in Kharkiv. Among the very special guests was Julia Fomina, an actress at the Berezil and a close friend of Valentyna Chystiakova, a character in our play. After the perfor mance there was a very emotional moment as she met Amy Grappell, who played Chystiakova in our show. In Lviv we played at the tiny, but beautiful Kurbas “НАШЕ ЖИТТЯ”, БЕРЕЗЕНЬ 1992 19 Press conference in Kiev for IN THE LIGHT project August 19, 1991. Пресконференція в Києві.
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