(Red [Renaissance])
THE MUSICAL
A cloud of smoke fills the auditorium. People take their seats. 1930s Polish radio plays. The audience sits. The music softens. Lights dim. A spotlight turns on, aimed in a precise circle at the center of the closed curtains. A master of ceremonies appears in front of the curtain.
MASTER OF CEREMONIES
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to our play.
What a marvelous thing — time!
This palace was designed in 1842 as an Institute for Noble Maidens.
Balls, flowers… and the scent of physics and geography textbooks embraced this space with their cozy arms.
By the way, the very month when this building first opened its doors to visitors, 28-year-old Taras Shevchenko was finishing his most famous painting, Kateryna in Saint Petersburg.
In the year 14 of this century, nearby this building, shots went off.
Those shots were fired in response to a national choice. This choice was once described by Mykola Khvylovyi: “Away from Moscow! Give us Europe!”
From 1934 to 1941, this building housed the Main Directorate of the NKVD.
And in the cellars were torture chambers.
Yes, yes, dear guests of our show, what a marvelous thing — time!
Right now, you sit in your cozy chairs, and directly beneath your feet lies the room where Maik Johansen was executed. Where Volodymyr Sosiura and Rylskyi were tortured. Where Mykhailo Semenko was killed. Well then, enjoy the show.
The master of ceremonies disappears behind the wings. The spotlight shuts off. The room’s completely dark. The show begins. MUSICIANS, still behind the closed curtains, begin to play something very slow, meditative, slightly strange. An interlude to help the audience transition from everyday life to theater — like a journey through time. They play for 1–2 minutes. Suddenly, the doors at the back of the auditorium burst open loudly. MUSICIANS, confused, stop playing. Another light turns on.
SOSIURA
The audience turns toward the voice. At the door at the entrance to the auditorium stands the young poet.
SOSIURA
Sosiura moves through the auditorium, addressing the people.
SOSIURA
She breathe quietly and lightly into the blue, Stretching her hands toward the stars… On a day like this, on this Earth —- spring blooms … …
Well, I haven’t figured out the rest yet, but… Do you know a single poem that, with all its poetic elegance, describes a porcelain saucer flying at the head of one’s beloved husband?
The first, the first thing you must remember: poets always lie. And not to trick you. Life… is just a very boring thing. For most. Literal and prosaic. Tram — factory, factory — home, home — tram, and so we go around this infernal circle of newly implemented INDU-STRI-A-LI-ZA-TION. And so the poet lies, to save you from it. The tram becomes a dragon, the factory — Mount Athos, the home — the Garden of Eden. Of course, in the garden there are no saucers flying at your head. And there are no shirts, sweaty and dirty after a night in the factory. There’s none of that. There are dragons, blossoms, and the dance… of 2 white palms intertwining under moonlight…
Sosiura stops and addresses a specific person in the audience.
SOSIURA
Excuse me. Could I borrow some money?
Sosiura persistently nags until someone in the audience hands him at least one bill.
SOSIURA
You get it, yes-yes. The publishing house delays payment, and I must write, and the typewriter is broken… I’ll give everything back within a week.
Next to a different door at the back of the auditorium stands another writer.
KHVYLOVYI
A-ha. He’ll sure return it. And what’s most fascinating: a poet! A lyricist! Women devour his work! And he never has money.
SOSIURA
Hello to you too.
KHVYLOVYI
What, Volodya… Thirst got you?
SOSIURA
Yes!..
KHVYLOVYI
Try writing more properly. How’s it going with that new one?
SOSIURA
She breathe quietly and lightly into the blue, Stretching her hands towards the stars…
KHVYLOVYI
There! “B-R-E-A-T-H-E.” Volodya, what is this? Your editor looks at your print run with disgust and fear. She “breathes,” Volodya. Not “breathe.”
SOSIURA
But it…
KHVYLOVYI
…Doesn’t work as well, yes, I know. What kind of a poet are you, Volodya, to not please the academicians? Do you not respect your reader? The Party says, Volodya, the literature is good…
SOSIURA
… If it stands to protect revolutionary ideals.
KHVYLOVYI
No, Volodya, if it is written properly.
SOSIURA
…
KHVYLOVYI
…
They look at each other and begin to laugh.
SOSIURA
Khvylovyi.
KHVYLOVYI
Mm..?
SOSIURA
It’s too early for us.
KHVYLOVYI
Hmm?.. Hmm.. Hm!
The poets exchange glances and slowly exit the auditorium. Lights fade. The curtain opens. Behind the table, we see old Tychyna. He is sleeping. Telniuk moves through dance, like in physical theater. Tychyna — in ordinary dramatic theater style. A large red envelope, Letter from X, is a noticeable detail of the scene.
SHMUNDYR
Even before he became the minister, Pavlo Tychyna lived and loved, unaware that the legacy he left, would be annihilated. And none of us are safe from such a fate.
VITIA
We will begin at the very end,
1, 9, 6 and 2.
With how the old poet was castigated.
Mister Telniuk comes in,
with a matter of critical weight.
a question of life and death
Well… ahem — such is the state.
He cautiously enters the quiet room,
where the poet is buried among his books.
TELNIUK
If I may?
OLD TYCHYNA
You may. In a gentle way.
You know, Telniuk, I feel agitated.
TELNIUK
Tychyna, why?
OLD TYCHYNA
Sit. What’s the deal?
You may. In a gentle way. You know, Telniuk, I feel agitated.
TELNIUK
The Soviet state yet again needs…
OLD TYCHYNA
Please, stop.
I can’t do this anymore…
SHMUNDYR
And suddenly he rose, looking like a ghost:
OLD TYCHYNA
Look at the letter, right here, before your eyes.
DANCERS SHOW THROUGH CHOREOGRAPHY WHAT HAPPENED TO THE AUTHOR OF THE LETTER.
X, a dejected man, writes:
So, this and that,
in the 1930’s
he was sent to Siberia
to the damned wolves,
survived ten years of torture
and lost his entire kin.
And who is to blame?
Right, Tychyna.
DANCERS THROUGH CHOREOGRAPHY SHOW WHAT HAPPENED TO THE WRITERS, HOW THEY FALL ONE BY ONE, PERSECUTED BY THE CROWD.
TELNIUK
Pavlo Hryhorovych, may I?
OLD TYCHYNA
I’m not finished yet.
If one is to trust the letter,
I also ruined:
Kurbas, Kazka, SLOVO, VAPLITE.
What a criminal sits before you,
Telniuk, did you know that?
TELNIUK
Pavlo Hryhorovych, may I?
DANCERS ACT AS PARTY OFFICIALS RECEIVING AWARDS — EVERYONE SHAKES HANDS, PRAISES, SALUTES.
OLD TYCHYNA
Allow me to continue.
He then mentions awards,
that I accepted greedily:
asks if the weight hurts
of the Orders and medals
given to me
for betraying my friends?
VITIA
And suddenly he rose. And started to roar…
DANCERS: AROUND TYCHYNA, A CIRCLE OF PEOPLE TIGHTENS, THEY POKE HIM, ACCUSE, SPIT, WHISTLE. EVERYONE PULLS OUT THE SAME RED LETTER FROM X. AND TYCHYNA SEEMS TO TRY TO DEFEND HIMSELF BEFORE THEM ALL, TRYING TO SPEAK TO EACH PERSON IN TURN.
OLD TYCHYNA
They always kept asking,
I tried to save them all!
Even without pleas,
I gave the damned awards,
I gave money to everyone
who was in need!
DANCERS: TYCHYNA TRIES TO SNATCH THE ACCUSATORY LETTERS FROM EVERYONE AND HIDE THEM. WHEN HE SUCCEEDS, A DANCER HANDS HIM ANOTHER. AND ANOTHER. DANCERS DANGLE THEM IN FRONT OF HIM. TYCHYNA TRIES TO COLLECT THEM ALL. WHEN HE REALIZES THAT IT’S IMPOSSIBLE, THAT THERE ARE MORE LETTERS THAN HE CAN HOLD, TYCHYNA THROWS THEM ALL UP OVER HIS HEAD AND, EXHAUSTED, RETURNS TO HIS CHAIR AT THE DESK. THE DANCERS COLLECT THE LETTERS AND VANISH.
KHOMENKO
Loudly, bitterly wept
the broken clarinet,
and so it began to wail
that it shook the parquet.
It thrashed outside the notes —
such a furious noise!
A pity that only Mr. Telniuk was witness to his woes.
1, 9, 6 and 2
By ’65 he was gone.
60 more years would pass —
and here we are, with you,
listening together
to a story told from the end:
how tears castigated
the old poet.
SHMUNDYR
Even before he became a minister, Pavlo Tychyna lived and loved, unaware that…
VITYA + KHOMENKO
…At once a man could be
a genius and a traitor,
a poet of Ukraine
and a Soviet lackey,
a flute, a messiah,
a symbol of love —
and the one of whom they’d say:
“his hands are stained with blood.”
Medals on his chest,
with portraits of Stalin,
but in that chest — just pain,
and a soul set on fire.
The boy-who-lived
in the Slovo Building,
burying his friends —
alas, was not new for him.
SHMUNDYR
As with burying honor,
and the Sunny Clarinets,
and Petliura and the UPR…
How can so many narratives
fit within just one
weary human being?
Oh, the answer’s quite simple:
his name was…
The lights go out.
