Long scene. Mykola Kulish, Natalka Vorozhbyt

“Long scene” is a collection of artifacts dedicated to the last performance of the Berezil Theater in 1933, “Maklena Hrasa,” the last joint work of Les Kurbas, Mykola Kulish, and Vadym Meller.

This collection edition will include the texts of Kulish’s play and its modern remake, “The Thistle Flower,” written 80 years later by playwright Natalka Vorozhbyt at the request of Stanislav Moyseiev, who headed the Franko Theater immediately after Bohdan Stupka’s death and staged “The Thistle Flower” on its stage in 2013. This is the first time that Vorozhbyt’s text has been published in our edition.

The book contains historical photos of both performances, Vadym Meller’s costume sketches for “Maklena Grasa,” models of scenery by Andrii Aleksandrovych, and costume sketches for “The Thistle Flower” by Kateryna Markush.

The main outline of the publication is created by an essay by the chief curator of the Museum of Theater, Music and Cinema of Ukraine, Tetyana Rudenko, where she talks about the history and context of the creation of both dramatic works.

The leitmotif of humiliation by poverty and the struggle for human dignity of “Maklena Hrasa” gains new strength in “Kvitka Budiak”, created during the dark times of Yanukovych’s presidency against the backdrop of the events preceding the Revolution of Dignity. The book is completed by documentary photographs by Sasha Bychenko from the series “There is no power but from God. God speaks through the voice of the people”. The slogans, messages and artifacts left by protesters on the Maidan during the revolution emphasize the continuity of Ukrainian history and the indomitability of resistance to dictatorship, encroachments on truth and justice.