PERFORMANCES AS AN INDICATOR OF THE COLLAPSE OF HUMANISTIC VALUES ON THEATRE STAGES OF THE “EMBITTERED” REGIONS OF UKRAINE (2009–2013)

Abstract

In the article the author traces some aspects of the creative activity of Russian-language theatres in Ukraine in the regions that suffered critically due to Russian aggression in 2014 (temporarily annexed Crimea and occupied Donetsk and Luhansk). In particular, attention is focused on the functions of these performances that predict social cataclysms. Drawing on the examples of specific productions, the author analysed which plays were produced by the theatres of these cities within the five years before the Russian military aggression. It also traced what changes occurred in theatre companies after 2014 (exemplifying by the creative groups of the analysed performances). The author comes to the conclusion about the meaningful intersections of the events of the forced shift of power depicted in the play and the events that soon occurred in this region (performance “The Black and the Red…” staged in the Mariupol Theatre). In the second case, the director’ s actualization of the work of the 1930s paradoxically does not lead to the reading of the anti-totalitarian clause not only by the audience, but also by the theatre troupe, which is in confrontation with the values of the independent Ukraine (“The Cabal of Hypocrites” in the Sevastopol Theatre). In the third case, the trend of dehumanization, criminalization of society and at the same time the stylistic signs of a post culture spectacle were presented by a performance by a guest director (“Imitation of the Perpetual Vices” at the Luhansk Theatre.