“Detalizatsiya” – from Kharkiv to “Melpomena Tavrii”

“Detalizatsiya” of the Theatre na Zhukah is chosen for participation in the International Festival “Melpomena Tavrii” – the most representative theater forum of Ukraine that celebrates its 20th anniversary this year.

“Melpomena Tavrii” will take place in May 17 through May 26. Traditionally, it is held in Kherson but this year the organizers return to the format originally set by the first festival when the plays were presented in two southern cities – Kherson and Mykolaiv. Therefore, in addition to the Mykola Kulish Kherson Region Academic Theatre of Music and Drama, there will be two more stages this year in Mykolaiv: the Ukrainian Theatre of Drama and Musical Comedy and the Academic Art Russian Drama Theatre.

“Detalizatsiya” will be presented on the small stage of the Academic Art Russian Drama Theatre (Mykolaiv) on May 21.
“We have been dreaming of going to the Melpomena Tavrii for years, but every May there would be some project or the other, which we simply could not move. However, this year our theater celebrates its 10th anniversary and the festival – its 20th, so the stars must have finally aligned: we applied and passed the qualification”, says Dmytro Ternovyi, producer of the Theatre na Zhukah.

He went on to explain why the theatre picked “Detalizatsiya” for the festival.

“This is a new play. It only premiered in December last year. And it is a contemporary Ukrainian drama that has never been staged in this country until recently. Meanwhile, Melpomena Tavrii seems to be increasingly interested in contemporary drama arts. Then there is the topic – the play is about the events that happened in Ukraine not so long ago. We do hope the public and the critics will like it”, says D. Ternovyi.

Written in 2012 by Dmytro Ternovyi, the co-founder and actor of the Theatre na Zhukah, “Detalizatsiya” won the main drama contest in Eastern Europe “Talk about borders. Living in the age of change”. Translated into German, Polish and French, it has never been staged in Ukraine so far. After the premiere in the Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe in 2014, the play had several readings in Austria. Written just a year before the Maidan, the piece proved to be prophetic in many ways. All of its acts are played in different genres and the actors play several roles, including the role of inanimate objects. The Theatre na Zhukah first presented “Detalizatsiya” in this country on December 10, 2017, dedicating the premiere to its 10th anniversary.

“Melpomena Tavrii” will host this year theaters from 12 countries: Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania, Hungary, Israel, Turkey, Georgia, Armenia, Portugal, Germany, Belarus and Moldova. Over its history, the festival hosted 122 theaters from 16 countries. The record number of plays was staged last year – 35. This record is expected to be broken this year and the audience of the festival is expected to expand considerably.