The theater

On Saturday night, Jennifer and I went to the theater in Vinnystia with a number of teachers from my school. It was an incredibly interesting, albeit mind numbingly boring, experience.

Last Wednesday, Larissa, my coordinator, asked me if I was interested in going to the theater with the teachers. She said they were going to see a special show featuring one of Ukraine’s theatrical stars. I asked her if she was going and she said, “Oh Sheryl, of course.” It would be a relatively inexpensive affair organized by the director of my school. He was chartering a bus to take us all. It sounded like an experience so I agreed to go and asked if I could invite Jennifer. This was of course, no problem.

On Friday, Larissa asked me if I still was going to the theater. I said, “Of course, aren’t you?” She said no. She said that it was too expensive; that the tickets were now 55 hryven (on top of the 12 hryven for the chartered bus) and that was just too expensive for her. Now I was expecting the tickets to be 25 hryven so I was a little shocked myself. I thought that 55 was a bit much to be spending too. I told her I didn’t think I could go if it cost 55 hryven either. She seemed pleased to hear this and walked off. A little later, another teacher asked me if I was still going. I told him that it was too expensive and he looked puzzled. He said, “30 hryven isn’t too expensive is it? There are even a few seats available for 15 if you like.” This was news to me. I told him that Larissa had said the tickets were 55 and he looked even more puzzled. He went and asked the director just to be sure and he came back and told me that Larissa was wrong.

At that moment, Larissa walked into the room, saw me talking to Sasha and came running over. He told her the tickets weren’t 55 hryven, but 30 or 15 depending. She elbowed him and said, “No, they’re really expensive, I asked.” Sasha said, “No they’re not.” Larissa elbowed him again. I just stood there looking at her with an expression on my face that most likely said: why are you so weird? I SEE you elbowing him. I’m standing right here. In the end, it turned out Larissa simply didn’t want to go so she made up a story about the tickets being too expensive. She thought she had to go if I went so she told me a tall tale. I still wanted to go and I told her that she didn’t have to come. She was relieved.

I went to the director’s office and bought two tickets. My director has a small shrine to Yushenko in his office. He has two small orange flags that hang next to Yushenko’s portrait. I didn’t really think much of it at the time. I simply bought my tickets from him and said, “See you tomorrow.” I went to Jennifer’s house and showed her the tickets. It was then that I noticed the tickets were stapled to a small orange flier that read, “Our Ukraine.” Our Ukraine is Yushenko’s party. We looked at each other and laughed. Apparently, I had unwittingly bought us tickets to a political fundraiser. Not only that, but the tickets we had were in the seventh row of the theater. We weren’t just going to the theater, we were going to the very front of the theater.

We figured we couldn’t get in trouble for unwittingly going to a political fundraiser with the teachers from my school. After all, I’m supposed to be integrating into the school community. We caught the bus at 4:30 on Saturday afternoon. It was a slow bus and it took us more then an hour to get to Vinnystia. When we got there, Jennifer and I only had time to grab some tea and pastries before the show. When we finally went inside the theater, we checked our coats and found our seventh row seats. In retrospect, I wish we hadn’t checked our coats because the theater was freezing.

The show lasted a little more then two hours. There was no intermission (no time to go grab my coat back) and no acts. It was just steady dialogue with random scene changes every now and again. There were four actors in the play: two women and two men. One of the women was older and the other was younger. They had equal roles in the play. Both the men were older. One of them was a main character and the other played all the other roles: conductor of the symphony, waiter at the restaurant, guard at the museum, pedestrian who walked around stirring his tea. I’m still not sure what the play was about seeing as it was all in Russian and all dialogue. The show’s special effects included a loud machine blowing “snow” down onto the stage a couple times and pre-recorded tracks of music for the “conductor” to “conduct” to.

It was very boring to sit for over two hours in the freezing theater straining to hear and understand what was going on. (Oh yeah, there were no microphones. I doubt people in the back could even hear.) Still, it was an interesting experience. When the play was over, everyone stood and clapped. Rather than a normal applause, people clapped in unison to show their approval. When the actors were taking their bows, people from the audience would run up on stage and give the older woman flowers. She must have been the star. She ended up with heaps and heaps of huge boquets.

I never thought a night could be equally boring and interesting, but I'd never been to the Ukrainian theater. At the very end, a representative from Yushenko's party got up and droned on and on. Everyone clapped again in unison and then we headed home.

**I should say for the record that I don't support any one political party in Ukraine. I support the people's right to choose for themselves the leaders that will best serve them.