Kyrylo Kozhumiaka fable updated as puppet show and satire in Toronto (09/08/96)

Kyrylo Kozhumiaka fable updated as puppet show and satire in Toronto

by Yuriy Diakunchak

TORONTO - "I am he, the one called Zmeej, I eat children with my tea," sings Zmeej, the whiny, obnoxious dragon who is terrorizing a peaceful kingdom. "Zmeej" is one of the central figures in a new, English-language adaptation of the folk tale about Kyrylo Kozhumiaka produced by puppet-maker Miroslawa Betlej. The Lalka Puppet Theatre production was staged on March 26 at Toronto's Ontario College of Art and on the weekends of May 4-5 and 11-12 at the St. Vladimir Institute.

Titled "The Green Goofy Being and the Tanner," the play is a modern version of an old Ukrainian favorite about a tanner, Kyrylo, who slays a child-devouring dragon.

Ms. Betlej said she reworked the fairy tale so that a princess became the principal hero. "I feel there are many examples in our literature where the woman has a lot to say, but rarely is she the central character," she added.

The director said she also made Zmeej, who doesn't get rubbed out in this version, a positive character in order to provide children with role models that are easier to emulate.

"In general, we try to show children role models that are too idealized. They are difficult for children to attain. I wanted to show through the dragon that you can have weaknesses, that you can be a whiner, but you can still be a positive character," she says.

The play, a mixture of live characters, masked actors and puppets, offers children the opportunity to participate in sing-a-longs with the Princess, played by Motria Onyschuk, and Zmeej, played by Andrij Kudla dressed up in a freaky-eyed, green foam covered costume. Though the dragon did look a bit scary, 4-year-old audience member Conrad Chow offered an emphatic "No!" when asked if he was frightened.

Other characters in the play included Kyrylo, played by Franko Diakowsky, and a rather redundantly named Doradnyk the Wiseman, played by Danylo Darewych. Nestor Gula played the Guitarist and, appropriately enough, provided the accompanying music throughout the play.

Although the play was directed at children, there is a lot of subtext in it to entertain the parents as well, Ms. Betlej explained. "When puppet theatres developed, they doubled as entertainment for children and political satire for adults."

One of this play's apparent messages to adults is that we often create our own problems through greed. In this version of the tale, the King imported Zmeej in the first place as a tourist attraction to boost the economy, basing his decision on a banker's advice that giving the dragon one child per year is "an acceptable risk." At one point, the King, who is played by Hryhorij Dyczok, wonders if he can collect insurance if his daughter is eaten.

The play also takes on the matter of immigration and integration into the host society - Kyrylo is depicted as a second-generation immigrant while the Zmeej is a recent arrival.

The dragon represents the way people sometimes look at immigrants as different, sometimes distasteful and perhaps even evil beings. On the other hand, the Zmeej exhibits the stereotypical immigrant desire to succeed in the new world.

"Zmeej wants people to understand him and be sympathetic to him, but his child-eating habits stand in the way," Ms. Betlej said. "He isn't afraid in a strange environment to say he is different, but at the same time, he's willing to change."

"That's why he leaps at the chance to become friends with the Princess instead of eating her - she can teach him the customs of his new environment," the director said.

Ms. Betlej, who came to Canada from Poland in 1988, is finishing an arts program that includes photography, holography and film at Ontario College of Art this year. Puppets became part of her life while she attended the Theatrical Puppet School in Poland. She hopes to present more Ukrainian fairy tales in English in the future, furthering her dual goal of exposing society at large to Ukrainian culture and giving Ukrainian children something to share with their friends.

"Our kids need the self-confidence of being able to take their English-speaking friends to see the plays and say, 'look, we have this.' Our literature is definitely beautiful," Ms. Betlej said. Her aim is to have these plays presented to a wide audience at one of the Harbourfront Center's venues or other professional theatres.

The current production is an English version of a Ukrainian-language adaptation of the folk tale staged in 1990-1991, and presented in the Toronto, Detroit and Cleveland areas. Ms. Betlej hopes to stage an updated Ukrainian version again this fall.