From Theater to Cinematography: Creative Search of Les Kurbas

Abstract

The article examines the artistic path and creative pursuits of Les Kurbas, the Ukrainian and soviet director, who undoubtedly remains an outstanding figure in the history of Ukrainian cultural life in the 1920s and 1930s. He was the founder of Ukrainian political theater, and later philosophical theater; also fruitfully worked in early cinematography. The article emphasizes the relevance of studying the creative work of the director, his original creative method of educating actors nowadays. In his own way, Kurbas became a standalone theatrical institute for young people, raised more than four dozen professional directors who later became theater managers and directors of Ukrainian theaters, teachers. The director created Ukrainian theater and cinema school of acting; his innovative artistic ideas still remain relevant today. He developed his own aesthetic-theatrical concept of conditional-metaphorical theater based on life itself. Being the man of art, Kurbas influenced the formation of stage constructivism in Ukrainian theatrical art. In addition to the positive memories of his contemporaries, we also encounter some legends, various testimonies and assessments of events of that time, which create a certain mythological space around the artist. Hence, today we need to carefully analyze numerous documentary evidence, facts, memoirs, literary and theatrical sources, as well as try to be objective in reconstructing events and reflecting on the fate and work of the director.