Theatre
Myna Mazailo
Мина Мазайло
Mykola Kulish · 1929
Opening lines
Рина
Ой, Улю, ой, тільки Улю, і тобі не сором! Я жду тебе, жду, жду! Нерви як не луснуть, серце знемоглося.
Oh, Ulia, oh, really, Ulia, aren't you ashamed! I've been waiting and waiting and waiting for you! My nerves are about to snap, my heart is worn out.
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from uk.wikisource.org
Synopsis
In Kharkiv, in the Kholodna Hora district, in the mid-twenties, the clerk Myna Mazailo holds his surname responsible for all his failures and wants to exchange it for a more distinguished Russian one, Syreniev, Rozov or Tyulpanov. He drags into the affair his wife Lyna, his daughter Ryna and his son Mokiy, and the choice of a name becomes, within the household, a quarrel over the language one speaks and what one wants to be.
Context
The play appeared in 1929 in the almanac Literaturnyi iarmarok, then in volume form in Kharkiv. Premiered on 18 April 1929 at the Berezil theatre by Les Kurbas, with sets by Vadym Meller, it was staged the same year in Kyiv by Hnat Yura and in several other cities, and toured as far as Georgia in 1930. Soon counted among the director's ideological deviations, it left the repertoire at the beginning of the thirties and was not staged again in Kharkiv until 1989.
Who it is for
A comedy in four acts, whose humour owes much to names, accents and the shift from one language to another.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as one of the major Ukrainian plays of the first half-century, it is studied at school; the Kharkiv theatre gave its 450th performance in 2010.
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