CANADA COURIER: The sequel to a Ukrainian Canadian family (01/26/97)

CANADA COURIER

by Christopher Guly

The sequel to a Ukrainian Canadian family

A decade ago, Ukrainian Canadian audiences laughed and cried with the characters of "Just A Kommedia," a stage production directed by Toronto's Andrey Tarasiuk.

At December's end, listeners of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's national radio service got the chance to see what happened to the characters 10 years later, in Mr. Tarasiuk's sequel, "Wedding of the Century" - a collaborative writing effort involving several actors, including Mimi Kuzyk and Luba Goy, and senior writer Nika Rylski.

In this version, Dylan Yaroslav, who is now a young man played by Stratford Festival thespian Mark Harapiak, embarks on a national performing touring company to promote Canadian multiculturalism. He meets Chinese Canadian Sally Lam (played by Canadian actor Jenny Chang), and the two fall in love decide to marry.

Although Yaroslav's mother, Daria Carpiak (played by Hill Street Blues' veteran Ms. Kuzyk) is willing to compromise in accepting the multi-racial union, the ghost of Baba (played by Ms. Goy, who played Daria in "Just A Kommedia") is totally against the idea. Baba returns in spirit, flying through windows on the sounds of bandura strings, to haunt her family. She doesn't know times have changed, and so has Canada.

Mr. Tarasiuk understands the transformation.

As the director of such previous CBC Radio Drama offerings as "A Far Cry from Kyiv" and the 1993 Winnipeg stage production of "Tin Can Cathedral," which detailed that city's historic religious strife, the 44-year-old native Winnipegger has struggled to make changes himself.

He, like so many other Ukrainian Canadian artists, remembers his days at the National Theatre School of Canada in Montreal, when there were few celebrated "mentors" to look up to from within the community. "Now, when you look across the landscape, it's astonishing how many actors, designers, painters, sculptors, film-makers, directors and producers [you see]."

One need not look further than the talent involved in "Wedding of the Century." Certainly, Mr. Tarasiuk is no slouch on that front either.

Beyond "Wedding of the Century," of which there are plans to create a stage version some time in 1997, the founding member of Winnipeg's Rusalka Dance Ensemble serves as artistic producer of the Theatre Direct Canada. The Toronto-based company experiments with the innovative in bringing contemporary issues to young people; a show called "Hippopotamus Tea," for example, was presented at the city's Metro Zoo.

Mr. Tarasiuk also serves as artistic director of Chysta Productions, named after "Just A Kommedia." And, he also managed to squeeze in projects with Chicago's Touchstone Theatre and the newly refurbished Shakespeare's Globe in London.

The man moves.

He also admits that "Wedding of the Century" characters Yaroslav and touring company artistic director, Boris Dutyshyn (played by Larry Zecharko), carry elements of him. In a sense, they serve as his voice - and what a voice it is.

Mr. Tarasiuk's personal goal is to ensure that his fellow Ukrainian Canadian artists, no matter their discipline, avoid being ghettoized. "I would like to see us get to a place where we acknowledge not only those who have succeeded and are off and running, but to identify those that are gifted and to support them," he recently told this writer over the telephone from his Toronto office. "This would allow a group of artists to be able to hammer out their own personal context, to be played publicly, and to celebrate it - a celebration of being a Canadian of Ukrainian heritage."

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