Critiсal Discourse in Metadrama "Actress without Roles" by Varvara Cherednychenko

Abstract

The history of drama shows that in transitional periods dramatic texts often turn into a space for analyzing of the ways of art development and, above all, the theater. Experiments, denial of traditions, and the acute need to update aesthetic coordinates become an integral part of the communicative discourse of characters, as well as the basis of dramatic conflict. Legitimate at such stages is the demand for metadramatic forms. The theory of metadrama actively develops in modern literary criticism, based on the studies of Lionel Able, Richard Hornby, Karen Viweg-Marks, Slavomir Sviontka and others, while in Ukrainian literary studies partly represented by studies of Olena Bondareva, Oksana Kohut, Natalia Malyutina, and Yevhen Vasiliev. Metadrama is considered to be a special type of plays, which poetics is aimed at self-reflection of the nature of the theater. One of the key techniques of metadrama is the critics of theater. The purpose of the article is to analyze theatrical-critical discourse as a factor in metadramatic poetics of Varvara Cherednychenko's "Actress without Roles".
 It is proved that the metadrama is realized at several levels of the play. The basic level should be considered the use of drama-discussion genre, built on the actual conflict of theatrical concepts of the post-revolutionary era. At the character level, the metadrama focuses on the positions of the three main characters that are apologists to the fundamental trends in the history of the theater: сoryphaeus (Kyrylo Petrovich), Modernists (Roman), and the proletarian theater (Alla). The critical function of metadrama is manifested in polemics about strategies for reforming stage art in Ukraine, in particular due to appeal to various iconic texts from the repertoire of Ukrainian theaters.