The Berezil Theatre was an avant-garde Soviet Ukrainian theater troupe founded by Les Kurbas. It lasted from 1922 to 1933.[1] Its original home was in Kyiv, but in 1926 the troupe moved to Kharkiv.[2] Also known as Artistic Organization Berezil’, the company included several studios, a journal, museum, and theater school.[3] In 1927, Kurbas and the Berezil began collaborating closely with Ukrainian playwright Mykola Kulish. After the production of Kulish's last play, Maklena Grasa, Kurbas was sent into exile by the Ministry of Education. The theater was then renamed the Taras Shevchenko Theater by the government.[3]

Actors in Berezil.
Poster for the Berezil Theatre from the Museum of Theatre, Music and Cinema Arts of Ukraine

Selected productions edit

  • Haz (Gas), 1922, written by Georg Kaiser[3]
     
    Berezil memorial plaque on the facade of the Kharkiv State Academic Ukrainian Drama Theater
  • Macbeth, 1924, written by William Shakespeare[4]
  • Dance of numbers, 1927, directed by Les Kurbas, set design by Vadim Meller[5]
  • Narodnyi Malakhii (The People’s Malakhii), 1927, written by Mykola Kulish[3]
  • Sonata Pathétique, written by Mykola Kulish[6]
  • Maklena Grasa, 1933, written by Mykola Kulish[3]

References edit

  1. ^ "Music of Ukraine". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved February 24, 2022.
  2. ^ Fowler, Mayhill C. (2015). "Les' Kurbas and the Berezil' Theatre: Archival Documents (1927-1988)". East/West: Journal of Ukrainian Studies. 5 (2): 191. doi:10.21226/ewjus427. S2CID 165872677 – via Academic Search Complete.
  3. ^ a b c d e Fowler, Mayhill C. (September 5, 2016). Berezil' Theater (БЕРЕЗІЛЬ). Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism. doi:10.4324/9781135000356-REM256-1. ISBN 9781135000356. Retrieved February 24, 2022.
  4. ^ Shurma, Svitlana (2020). "'I choose March': Les Kurbas, Avant-garde Berezil and Shakespeare : review of Irena R. Makaryk's Shakespeare in the Undiscovered Bourn (2004)". Theatralia. 23 (1): 163–167. doi:10.5817/TY2020-1-13. S2CID 226709136 – via Complementary Index.
  5. ^ Smolenska, Svitlana (2019). "Avant-garde architecture and art of the 1920s-1930s in Ukraine and European modernism: interpenetration methods". Architectus. 58 (3): 12–13. doi:10.5277/arc190302 (inactive 31 January 2024).{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of January 2024 (link)
  6. ^ Fowler, Mayhill C. (2015). "Mikhail Bulgakov, Mykola Kulish, and Soviet Theater". Kritika: Explorations in Russian & Eurasian History. 16 (2): 276–277. doi:10.1353/kri.2015.0031. S2CID 142193609 – via Complementary Index.