“If we had an artist of this level of skill, we would make the whole world talk about her,” Pablo Picasso himself is said to have said this in 1954 in Paris, after seeing paintings by the brilliant Ukrainian artist Ekaterina Belokur at an exhibition. Relatives and fellow villagers considered Catherine almost crazy because of her frantic obsession with drawing, and even, despite the international recognition of her talent, they reacted very restrainedly, often outright indifferently, to her success. Hollyhocks, peonies, dahlias, sunflowers, marigolds, roses, poppies, bindweed, lilies, cornflowers and seemingly invisibly other, often amazingly fantastic flowers, appeared on the artist’s masterpiece paintings.
Maybe somewhere among these flower paintings you can see that triple rouge, about which the writer Maria Matios wrote in the novel (drama for three acts) “Licorice Darusya”. About that gun, which is life itself, because “it will seem black to you, then you will be zhovte, and then, marveling, it will light up with red. You don’t know what barva you’ll see tomorrow.”.
I have not been able to decipher these flower-life codes in the works of brilliant women - artists and writers.. Therefore, I will tell you about what was accurately identified, seen, a little overheard and experienced - about the premiere on April 25, 2026 of the play “Licorice Darusya” at the Chernivtsi Regional Academic Ukrainian Musical and Drama Theater named after Olga Kobylyanska (director-producer Lyudmila Skrypka).
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The first spectators of the April premiere were greeted in the theater foyer to the accompaniment of cymbals played by a very young musician. Everyone was offered to buy books by the famous countrywoman. Many of the buyers asked the ticket attendants where and when they could get an autograph, and looked around impatiently, looking for the author..
For mannered theatergoers, such a phenomenon as a premiere is now certainly associated with queues at the theater, a rush around tickets and a concentration of “celebrity” spectators - from politicians to popular bloggers. Eyewitnesses say that the “theater boom” at the favorite location of Chernivtsi residents - Theater Square - can most often be seen on the days of performances of enterprise performances with the participation of media and famous people.
\! " This is the whole spectrum of emotions at the same time - from “Otse so! \! " I remembered this “Vasileva Matir” more than once, while I was interested in the surge of interest in touring performances about “tsatsyanki”, about some doctors (proctologists or other specialization). This is a lightly entertaining and 99% stage fad, or simply money-making, - a sad and invincible phenomenon. Well, where would an academic theater be without a visit from a lady who asks everywhere if she can just sit. In the Chernivtsi Drama Theater - you can. Do not entertain the audience, but simply sit at once and in almost all the seats in the stalls, box-benoirs and on the balconies, since the seating performance is planned several days in advance, and the theater hall is more than half empty. Therefore, the hope for Chernivtsi spectators, who will continue to ignore such events, for me personally has not yet died, like fame and will.
On April 25, Chernivtsi, like Sweet Darusya in the novel, were almost silent. Nothing reminded of the premiere except a huge, dim poster-banner to the left of the entrance to the theater, which horizontally depicted the faces of two women of different ages looking at each other. The program noted that the play was performed with the same cast (with the exception of the role of the doctor). It's scary to ask why this is so. Because the “classical” answer of recent years in most theaters is that the actors have been mobilized, there is no one to play, and those who remain act and edit.
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The local press wrote sparsely and somewhat cautiously that the premiere of the play in 2026 is “one of the key events of the year and part of the concept of popularizing Bukovinian authors.”. As they say, “God help”, well, the local authorities, who really believes in what?. By the way, the Chernivtsi Regional Military Administration has already joined the popularization (not to be confused with populism) and even posted an announcement on the website, explaining to readers what the performance should convey to them. After the performance, Maria Vasilievna was awarded the highest honor of the regional council (for her significant contribution to the development of Ukrainian literature, the affirmation of national values \u200b\u200band many years of promotion of the Bukovina region) - the title “Honorable Hulk of Bukovina”. I didn’t count, but those initiated into the number of Bukovinian awards claim that during all the years of independence only 21 people received such a title. Let me remind you a little. “Licorice Darusya” was published in 2004, that is, more than 20 years ago. The novel remains a bestseller to this day.. This book, written by Maria Matios, has been translated into 20 languages.. About the frantic popularity of other literary (in particular fundamental) works, about performances based on them, etc.. I’m silent, like Darusya. Without perceiving the theses “better late...” (because it’s still better on time), I’ll just stop myself here with the words from a popular viral song: “Nutrition is? No food! After all, if I don’t stop, then I’ll remember again about “IF” and Picasso.
The Chernivtsi Drama Theater was the first in Ukraine to stage a dramatization of the novel “Licorice Darusya” (in 2008, also directed by Lyudmila Skrypka). Like her “contemporary”, that performance was a drama for three lives, the plot not deviating from the novel. Provincial, everyday and simplified vs deep and bright - what they didn’t write during the 10 years of Darusya’s stage life. The sudden disappearance of a popular performance from the repertoire was, to put it mildly, surprising. At the briefing with the participation of the theater’s creative team and Maria Matios, held before the premiere, they didn’t talk about the past, because now it really doesn’t matter. A new story has begun, and the main thing in it is that “Licorice Darusya” returned to her homeland, where, as the author himself says, “the viewer is especially demanding”.
Eyewitnesses say that once upon a time one very special viewer was late for a meeting with the first “Sweetheart Daruseya” - the then President of Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko. He entered the hall through the side entrance himself, without security, and at this time the actor (in the role of a policeman) ran along the central aisle in the direction of the guarantor with a fake pistol.
Now, at least at the beginning of the performance, no one was running in the hall, and on the edge of the stage in front of the curtain, to the right of the audience, a grandfather was sitting with a staff (actor Miroslav Makovychuk as the grandfather). He looked at those present, who took their places and at the same time looked at one of the most beautiful buildings in Europe, as the theater truthfully and proudly presents it before the start of each performance.
The public greeted Maria Matios standing and gave her a thunderous ovation.. Tears shone in Maria Vasilievna’s eyes, she looked around the hall and, putting her hand to her heart, bowed gratefully.
The opening of the curtain immediately answered the question of what will be new in this version of the play. All. Probably, trying to avoid or completely abandon the household appliances, a two-tiered metal semicircle structure was placed on the turntable of the stage. Over the course of two acts of the play, this miracle will be everything at once: both Darusya’s house and all the locations (in rural conditions! ), which the wild imagination of the viewer can imagine or identify from the novel.
And finally... Darusya (Marina Timku) appears. In a simple long shirt, covered with a black scarf, as if spellbound and on some wave of her silent mood, she spins, dances and just wanders around the stage. She is crazy - for all those who are now collectively called “haters” and “abusers”. She doesn't move when others dance and dances when they stand. She has her own universe, her own “silent” music.
The harbinger of a totalitarian regime - a red flag at the back of the stage - can be seen already at the beginning of the performance. Well, if there is such an atavism prop, then manifestations of violence are only a matter of time. The set design (production designer Natalya Tarasenko) sometimes seems too eclectic, because if the real motorcycle that the heroes of the action are tinkering with (read: repairing) can still be explained, like the bullhorn on the side frame of the stage and even the unattractive stuffed dogs, then the glass flasks that occasionally suddenly descend to the center from the space of the “sky” of the stage are something that requires a very rich imagination.
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Very quickly the director of the play destroys the so-called fourth wall (and subsequently all other walls), sending “about” to the front stage and a little into the audience hall.? “One woman’s partnership”, for which gossiping is more important than breathing. With the words “Christ is Risen,” these colorful and noisy ladies will pretend to flirt with the audience, offering treats and the latest rural news.
These “poisonous” fellow villagers, with the exception of one good-natured neighbor Maria (Snezhana Kavulich), will constantly remind Darusa why she is a “licorice” - because once, as a child, she committed the sin of treason - she told the occupying officer, who offered her candy, about her father’s voluntary cooperation with Bandera’s men.. This became a tragedy for three lives: father, mother and Darusya herself.
This is the first time I’ve seen Marina Timka on stage, although she has been working in the theater since 2010 and plays in many performances.. My sin, I repent. Her Darusya (mute throughout the first act) powerfully and honestly conveys the immense pain of a wounded soul. I want to feel sorry for her, protect her and, forgive my naivety, take her away from her dashing and tough fellow villagers. Maria Vasilievna secretly shared with me her impression of Marina-Darusya: “This is my Darusya, she is real. She is very good"
A person can feel immense happiness, but there is a limit to the scale of grief. For Darusya, the stage society also determines the limit of happiness, because when a man appears in her life, he too is “sentenced” - he is strange, stupid and tells a lot of inconvenient truths.
In the role of Darusya's couple - Ivan Tsvichko - Nazariy Kavulich. It’s one thing to read in a novel a vivid description of the extraordinary personality of Drymbar Tsvichko, it’s quite another to later find out that the real prototype of this hero is so interesting and colorful (be sure to find a post about him on the author’s social networks) that he deserves a “personally” written novel, and definitely not in the drama genre. And another thing is to see in person the author of a work, a character she created approaches in the hall and, offering to buy drymba, ironically remarks: “And I know you.”.
The ritualism and symbolism encoded in the actions of the characters completely deprives this performance of everyday life.. Darusya is looking for either salvation or relief from her torment in the cemetery, lying between the “graves” of her parents, whose monument appears (descends) in the form of a huge blade from a guillotine. Even the stubborn truth-seeker Tsvichko will not be able to protect and cure the muteness of the “sweet one”.. They will destroy you, they will hate you... Everything is like in life.
After intermission, I notice that a representative of the elite caste of the regional bar and two of her companions have left the hall. There are no more empty seats. I remembered a wise aphorism: “Whoever does not know where he is going will be very surprised when he ends up in the wrong place” - the author, unfortunately, is unknown to me.
While some are walking, others are coming.. Occupiers, security officers, and generally speaking, simply hateful creatures. They behave impudently (classically for such evil spirits), loot, make foot wraps out of embroidered towels, mock the people, clearly confirming the slogan “Who was nothing will become everything” (sorry for the enemy language).
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The image of these eternal enemies may seem somewhat caricatured in some places, and I definitely want neither prototypes nor representatives of this evil spirits to be on stage, but... Times change, and these creatures are still crawling onto our land with the same methods. That’s why modern classics resonate so painfully that it’s hard to perceive them without hatred..
In response to a remark from Officer Didushenko (Andrey Tsyganok) - that frankly disgusting and at the same time brilliantly played character who would later become the rapist of Darusya’s mother Matronka - one of the spectators cannot stand it about the cold in the hall and says: “You will be warmer in the oven.”. It means they believe it, it means they’re really hooked.
How can one remain indifferent to a story where a mother hangs herself because of the “sweet” joy of her own child, and they cannot remove her from the bantina until the same Didushenko orders her braid to be cut off And throughout all this time, next to her mother, “Darusya was untwisted with both hands and pulled at her naked and bare feet, so that two men could not pull up the first child.”. Do you feel how much pain and despair even this text causes Then Darusya lost her voice, and then they started calling her “sweet”.
After the performance, I also want to be silent, think and find at least a hint of the answer: why tragedies do not change people and evil always wins; why toxicity has been in fashion for centuries; Why is public approval “needed” for personal happiness?; why and how some people give themselves the right to determine whether others live or not.
The next performances of the play will take place on Saturday, May 9, at 17:00, Friday, May 22, at 18:00 and Saturday, May 30, at 17:00.