Stardate: 2/1/2008 Ukrainian Musical, The Fair at Sorochintsi

Yesterday, Antonina and Vasilisa took us to a Ukrainian musical called, The Fair at Sorochintsi, which was written as a short story by Nicholai Gogol (a famous Ukrainian writer) about his birth town in a small village outside of Poltava (which is about 1 1/2 hours from Kharkiv).

The musical was very colorful and fun. There were the usual farce type of comings and goings with gypsies and a corrupted priest who was having an affair with the lead man's wife, etc.

But the most interesting aspects were the costumes. They were decorated with the Ukrainian embroidery that they are so famous for. They wore a lot of red, like red leather boots, and white shirts with embroidery. The gypsies were dressed in red and black, and the woman's costume was all flowy, just like the gyspy stereotype.

It was also cool because of the dancing. It was amazing. They did the boot slapping dances of the Cossacks and other traditional Ukrainian dances. Some of the men did flips and the splits about 10 feet off the ground! The singing was beautiful, too.

Of course, it was written in Russian (because Gogol, under the Czar, wasn't allowed to write in Ukrainian); either way, we couldn't understand the words. We looked the story's plot up online prior to we had that to help us out.

I was so sick with the flu through that I had to rest my head on Patrick's shoulder for most of the play.

It was a matinee so there were like 40 junior high school kids in attendance; a class trip most likely. They were restless for the 2nd half of the show, so I said to them settle down in English and they were scared and stunned silent! :-)