Режисерські пошуки Сергія Данченка: початок Київського періоду
Serhiy Danchenko`s searches as a director: the beginning of the Kievan period

Summary/Abstract: Choosing the "Stolen Happiness" by I. Franko (artist S. Koshtelyanchuk, 1979) as a debut performance at his position of the artistic director of the Kyiv Theater of Franko, S. Danchenko was running an extremely high risk, because a few years ago the staging of this drama in the Lviv Theater of Zankovetska proposed by him has become a phenomenon in the theatrical life of Ukraine. Mykola, played by B. Stupka, was perceived as a "tribal" feature of Zankovetska performance school and it was hard to imagine how it will partner with actors with a different "blood." It should be recalled that in the second half of the 70s, the "Stolen Happiness", almost simultaneously with Lviv residents, was staged by two more theaters, i.e. Volyn Theater of Shevchenko (director Oleksandr Zabolotnyi, artist L. Chernova, 1976) and Chernivtsi Theater of Kobylanska (director V. Opanasenko, artist B. Lassan, 1978). In all performances, the age difference between the characters was removed, and the social background of the events underlying the drama was offset. Young and beautiful Mykhaylo, Mykola and Anna found themselves in the vortex of the complex ethical issues. However, in the play of S. Danchenko only Mykhaylo and Anna fought for their right to happiness at any cost. Instead, Mykola-Stupka existed in a different spiritual space. For him, any manifestation of egocentrism was unacceptable; a zero "pain threshold" made him vulnerable to the slightest adversity in life of his loved ones. The pain of another person, beyond any logic of interpersonal relationship development, permeated all his essence, became his pain. Staging of the "Stolen Happiness" in the Theater of Franko, having summarized the topical issues of the day up to the universal categories of the being singled out the new content layers of Franko play. Later on, the stage interpretation of the Ukrainian classics will be heading towards generalization of the conflict and issues, out-of-the-household development of characters. Increasingly, the ritual acts as an effective factor in forming the shaped structure of performances. Indicative in this respect will be the staging of I. Borys, V. Kuchynskyi, I. Volytska, D. Bohomazov and others. The "Visit of the Old Lady" by F. Durrenmatt staged in 1980 in the Kyiv Theater of Franko (artist D. Lider) is one of the brightest pages of the Ukrainian theater of the first half of the 80s. The very appeal to this drama has become fundamentally important, since the careful "ideological eye" extremely censored the involvement of contemporary foreign drama in repertoire. The offensive diplomacy of S. Danchenko allowed bypassing the censors’ prohibition and expanding the problem-thematic and genre-stylistic range of art searching of Franko Theater actors. The director did not "fought" with F. Durrenmatt, having kept in the performance both the tragic and the comic. Like many of his predecessors, he actively brought Brecht’s vocabulary into the artistic tissue of performances. Meanwhile, the lyrical intonation powerfully shaped the area of dramatic events related to the central characters, which saturated the scenic expression with psychological overtones of a broad range. The play consistently showed the process of moral degradation of a man in a society where everything is bought and sold, where money is the only vital goal. However, the performance claimed the possibility of resurrection of the human spirit capable of reviving a person, pulling it out of the swamp of the middle-class morality, from the shackles of the narrow-minded thinking. That’s the way Ilya (S. Oleksenko) appeared in the play, a certainly tragic way, but enlightened with the knowledge of the re-discovered achievements of the individual, i.e. freedom, will not motivated by anyone, the right of choice, even though this right is paid by life. Claire (N. Koperzhynska and Y.Tkachenko) is the same victim as her lover, but she certainly remains a dark power generating the new victims. The actresses played a tragic impossibility of evil redemption, played the fatality as the cross torment retained by superhuman efforts in the literal sense of the word. Claire can take everything away and reward for everything. However, her path is still barren. At first glance, the directorial concept fit into the dominant theater development trend of the past decades, when the man was interesting not in itself, but rather as an object of influence of the world in its various manifestations, from life and social conditions to the most general laws of existence. However, the multilayered imagery of the play built by Danchenko and Lider in collaboration, provided an opportunity of a broader contextual understanding of the problems of illusory harmony of material prosperity, which demands the conformity, instead turning into the petty meager existence. "Stolen Happiness" by Franko, "Uncle Vanya" by Chekhov, and "The Visit of the Old Lady" by F. Durrenmatt referred to herein embedded the Ukrainian theater into the context of European stage practices. The scenic chronotopes as an effective factor in the formation of figurative systems of performances by S. Danchenko and scriptwriter D. Lider identified the main path which enriched the aesthetic potential of Ukrainian theater culture.

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