THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE DIRECTOR'S CONCEPT FROM THE STAGE VERSION OF THE POEM TO THE STAGE MEANS OF EXPRESSION (THE PLAY «THE TALE OF MARA» IN THE PRODUCTION BY THE LVIV ACADEMIC PUPPET THEATRE, 2025)

Abstract

This article analyses the director's own experience working on a stage adaptation of Lina Kostenko's poem «The Tale of Mara» at the Lviv Academic Puppet Theatre, marking the first time this production has been performed in the Ukrainian theatre. The article examines the specifics of working on a stage version of the poetic text (compared to director Volodymyr Pidtserkovnyi's approach to its adaptation). Specifically, it explores the creation of Mara's character not by one or two actresses, but by the entire cast; it also includes omissions of parts of the text and its replacement with sound imitations of the elements. The theme, ideas, and age range of the play «Mara» are explored in the context of other stage interpretations of poetic works, particularly those by Lina Kostenko, in Ukrainian and international puppet theatres. The play is family-oriented, which explains the duality of its theatrical code. For middle-school-aged viewers, the play «The Tale of Mara» emphasises the fairytale-like nature of the plot, and the highly relevant theme of the inadmissibility of bullying a child based on their physical appearance is highly pertinent. For adult viewers, the production reveals the parable essence of Lina Kostenko's work – the theme of the ambivalence of the evil and good principles in one person.
According to interviews with theatre scholars and the reviewer's published appreciation, the author identifies specific aspects of the director's vision across all components: dramaturgy, set design (including puppets, makeup, and video art), the cast, the musical component, and the actor's interaction with poetry. Particular attention is paid to the anthropomorphic properties of the production's set itself, which, at appropriate moments, assembles a girl's face from its puzzle pieces. The article notes that the innovative concept of building an ensemble around the unified movement, costume, makeup, and voice-leading of the performers, by which all the images of the poem are sequentially and jointly reproduced. The artistic stylisation, reflecting the textures of grass and water in the multimedia, played a key role in harmonising the performers.
Conclusions. Thus, this article examines the play «The Tale of Mara», based on Lina Kostenko's the eponymously-named poem, from the perspective of the ambivalence of its addressee and the ambivalence of the poem's heroine, which is reflected in the system of staging techniques, particularly the depersonalisation of the actresses in terms of dramatic performance and the search for a unified poetic sound by the entire cast.