Movie & Theater

One of the most popular features in the program of the Zankovetska Theatre and other companies are Olexiy Kolomiets’s paired plays Blue Deer and Kravtsov, which won the playwright a Taras Shevchenko State Prize of the UkrSSR for Art in 1977.

One of the most prolific playwrights in Ukraine today is Mikola Zarudny, the author of more than thirty plays. His Rainbow, Antaeuses, The Island of Your Dreams, Fortuna, Pardon, but We're Without Makeup, The Time of Yellow Leaves and The Rear have been either published or produced at theatres in Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary, the German Democratic Republic, Rumania and Cuba. The interpretations of his plays have brought fame to many Soviet actors and directors, and have been linked with the successes of several generations of Ukrainian theatre men.

Revolution and the history of the Soviet people, the urgent issues of our times, the worldwide struggle for peace, freedom and independence, and international workers’ solidarity — these are probably the most popular themes in Soviet Ukrainian drama, opera, ballet and operetta.

An especially great contribution to this theme has been made by the famous composer Heorhiy Maiboroda, People’s Artist of the USSR and winner of a UkrSSR State Shevchenko Prize. Many of his grand operas have been premiered at the Kiev Opera with which lie maintains a strong friendship.

Russian classic drama has had a great influence on the development of theatre in many socialist nations. It was a genuine school of realism for several generations of actors and directors. Indeed, the achievements of the Ukrainian theatre are largely linked with the staging of Russian classics.

The roots of Ukrainian theatrical art can be traced to the ancient Eastern Slavic folk games, theatricalized work songs and rites, as well as to the art of the jesters of Kievan Rus and the interludes staged at what were called school theatres (theatres at Ukraine’s first establishments of learning, such as the Ostrog School and the Kiev Academy).

In the 17th and early 18th century the school theatres staged didactic religious and morality plays and historical dramas — c. g., Theophan Prokopovich’s tragicomedy Volodimir (1705) praising in an allegoric form the reforms of Peter I, and By the Grace of God... (1728) describing the Ukrainian liberation movement under Bogdan Khmelnitsky. Between the 17th and 19th century folk puppet theatre enjoyed a high degree of popularity in Ukraine. Its plays had a satirical purport and scathingly ridiculed the vices and wrong-doings of foreign overlords, the clergy and the serf owners.