Sing, Lola, Sing! | Madách Nemzetközi Színházi Találkozó

Sing, Lola, Sing! 14

Musical drama – the play by Oleksandr Chepalov based on the novel “Professor Unrat” by Heinrich Mann and the film “The Blue Angel”

Ivan Franko National Academic Drama Theatre, Kyiv, Ukraine

Director: Dmytro Bogomazov

Performed in Ukrainian, with English and Hungarian surtitles

2 hours 30 minutes with 1 breaks.

The play of a contemporary Ukrainian author Oleksandr Chepalov is based on Heinrich Mann’s famous socio-critical novel “Professor Unrat, or The End of a Tyrant” and the 1930 cult film “The Blue Angel” directed by Josef von Sternberg, a well-known Austrian cinematographer. The main part of Professor Unrat was excellently performed in that film by Emil Jannings; the spectacular début of Marlene Dietrich as Lola initiated her film-star career in Hollywood.

According to the laws of the genre, the plot of the musical drama is romantic and fairly lucid. An enticing singer Lola is the star of the port cabaret “The Blue Angel”. Among her admirers and fans are young students of the local high school who invariably spend their evenings at her performances. Once an elderly professor of Latin - a misanthrope, a petty tyrant and a bore nicknamed Unrat (Filthy) decides to visit that dubious nightclub himself to put an end to his students’ improper behaviour. There, he gets acquainted with the singer Rosa Froehlich alias Lola whom he regards as an embodiment of wickedness. Paradoxically, Unrat himself starts frequenting the cabaret and forgets his mission of the champion of morality, He, too, like many other men, falls victim to Lola’s fatal charms. Since then, the life of that stern moralist has turned topsy-turvy.

Music and lyrics for the play have been written by actors Oleksandr Behma and Mykhailo Kukuiuk.

Cast and creatives:

Rosa Fröhlich (Lola), cabaret actress: Oksana Zhdanova
Hnus, secondary school professor: Oleksandr Yarema
Director of school: People's Artist of Ukraine Oleksandr Zadniprovskyi
Lohmann, secondary school pupil: Vitalii Azhnov
Ertzum, secondary school pupil:, Pavlo Shpegun
Guste, actress, Lola's friend: People's Artist of Ukraine Olena Hohlatkina
Kiepert, Guste's husband, artist: Merited artist of Ukraine Oleksandr Pecherytsia
Andy, nicknamed Kerosene: Akmal Huriezov
Compere: Mykhailo Kukuyuk

Cabaret actors:
Kateryna Artemenko, Valerii Velychko, Anna Rudenko, Mykhailo Matiukhin

Cabaret girls:
Maryna Veremiichuk, Malvina Khachatrian, Tetiana Kryshtal, Dana Kuz, Anna Markovych, Nataliia Neshva, Mariia Rudynska, Anastasiia Rula, Hanna Snihur-Khramtsova

Cabaret orchestra:
Oleksandr Behma (piano), Serhii Hdanskyi (clarinet, sax), Anna Datska (cello), Oleksandr Kazymirov (trumpet), Artem Kutsan (violin), Olesandr Mitskevych (drums), Mykhailo Omelchenko (flute), Volodymyr Sinchuk (bass, contrabass), Oleksandr Trehubov (trumpet), Andrii Shvets (tuba)

Director

Dmytro Bogomazov

Main Stage

Dmytro Bogomazov

Ukranian director, theatre theacher, Honoured Artist of Ukraine. He was born in 1964, and spent his childhood and went to school in a small town near Kharkiv. Initially, he studied electronic engineering at the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, but he discontinued his studies and turned to the performing arts. He was admitted to Kyiv National Ivan Karpenko-Kary Theatre, Cinema and Television University. While still studying stage direction, Dmytro Bogomazov created the performance «Enchantress» («The Fortuneless Maiden») by I. Karpenko-Kary, which was awarded the Debut of the Year in 1993, and later went down in Ukrainian theatre history as an example of modern adaptation of classical Ukrainian play. У 1993-2000 та 2011-2017 he worked as a director at the Kyiv Academic Drama and Comedy Theatre on the Left bank of the Dnieper. In 2001 Dmytro Bogomazov have founded Theatre “Vilna Scena” (Open Stage) and until 2011 worked as its artistic director. He is the founder of international Theatre Platform Festival (2002). Since 2017 Dmytro Bogomazov is a chief director of Ivan Franko National Theatre. He has created some 40 productions in Ukraine and abroad (in Poland, France, Russia). Including: W. Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night,1995 and 2017; A Midsummer Night’s Dream, 2003; Hamlet, 2009; Othello,2004; Sweet Dreams (an adaptation of Richard III),2008; Coriolanus, 2018; Sophocles’ Oedipus, 2003; Philoktet-Concert, 1998; an adaptation of novellas by L. Pirandello: Some Wine…or 70 turns, 1996; after the novellas by T. Mann: Deceived one, 1999; after the novellas by Е.-Т.-А.Hofman’s: Throat «SANCTUS», 2001; Georg Buechner’s Woyzeck, 2014; B.-М. Koltés’ Roberto Zucco, 2004; R. Schimmelpfennig’s A Woman From The Past, 2007; an adaptation of Mykhailo Bulgakov novel Morphin, 2002; an adaptation of novellas by V. Stefanyk: Morituri te Salutant, 2003 and 2013; Ivan Franko’s Stolen Happiness, 2020 and other. Works of Dmytro Bogomazov were presented at many international theatre festivals in Ukraine, France, Poland, Hungary, Russia, Belarus, Georgia, Bulgaria, Turkey, Sweden, Norway, Israel, China. He received numerous theatre awards in Ukraine, including the Shevchenko National Prize, the highest artistic award of Ukraine.

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