A powerful final chord brought the 40th Zamość Theatre Summer to a close. The Voskresinnia Theatre from Lviv presented the spectacular street performance Shevchenko’s Testament, based on the works of Ukraine’s national bard, Taras Shevchenko (12 July).

A two-time winner of the Hetman’s Mace — for Job (2004) and To Meet Prospero (2009) — the Voskresinnia Theatre from Lviv captivated the Zamość audience for the fifth time with its distinctive theatrical formula, combining traditional psychological acting with innovative artistic form.

Each new production by Iaroslav Fedoryshyn begins from scratch, searching for the most fitting theatrical means of expression and constructing a formula of theatre that is close to the heart, one that articulates the anxieties of the era in which he lives and creates. Shevchenko’s Testament — a production that premiered in Lviv in 2014 on the 200th anniversary of the birth of the Ukrainian writer, poet, painter and national hero — is undoubtedly among his most compelling stagings. Shevchenko was the first to elevate the speech of Ukrainian peasants to the rank of a literary language and to create poetry in that language.

In this extraordinary spectacle, Iaroslav Fedoryshyn engages all the senses — sight, hearing and, above all, imagination. In my view, Shevchenko’s Testament, crowning this jubilee edition of the Theatre Summer, was an exceptionally expressive and brilliant production, one that will remain in memory for a long time. It was fabulously colourful, with rich and varied scenography, filled with poetic stanzas, magical and enchanting music, and striking expressiveness. The abundance of theatrical means and dramaturgical depth generated an exceptional intensity of artistic experience, one that — in my opinion — fully deserved the “Super Hetman’s Mace”.

Shevchenko’s Testament presents a vision of nineteenth-century Ukraine seen through the eyes of the bard himself. Born the son of a serf peasant and orphaned at an early age, Shevchenko became a servant to a village landowner who recognized his artistic talent. He later travelled to Vilnius and St. Petersburg, where he studied drawing and became acquainted with the life of the upper classes. After gaining his freedom, he travelled across Ukraine as a renowned painter and poet, creating drawings of historical landmarks. Subsequently, he became involved in the Brotherhood of Saints Cyril and Methodius, which sought to liberate Ukraine as a nation. For this activity, he was arrested, sent to a penal battalion, subjected to constant surveillance, exhausting daily drills, exile and hard labour constructing fortresses. Even in captivity, he did not abandon his beliefs and was arrested again for inciting the people. After his release, he was forbidden to live in Ukraine. He died at the age of 47. One year before his death, he became a full member of the Russian Academy of Fine Arts.

The performance is a poetic journey along the Dnieper, to places close to the protagonist, to the world to which he devoted his poetry and for which he fought — a world that no longer exists. Images from this journey ignite the viewer’s imagination, further enhanced by music carefully matched to each stage of Shevchenko’s life and by symbolic excerpts from his Testament, a work that was both a call for national unity and a summons to the struggle for independence, as well as a reminder of the verdicts that deprived the artist of the right to write and paint.

The performance opens with a kind of procession. Its participants carry wooden frames and fence-like structures; their heads are covered with models of houses symbolising Ukrainian villages. The scene is accompanied by Ukrainian choral singing. As classical music changes, stanzas describing the Ukrainian landscape — steppes, grain fields and poplars — are heard. The audience sees Shevchenko at his easel, painting the road ahead of him.

A festive scene follows, symbolised by folk costumes, wedding wreaths adorned with colourful ribbons, chants and dancing villagers, among whom the painter-poet descends from his platform. Orthodox church bells ring out; moments later, women rock infants in wooden tubs, singing lullabies. All these scenes are captured by the artist.

A shift in music introduces a scene set on a village marketplace. A rural cart appears, and villagers engage in everyday chores — weaving linen, carrying water. The sound of clappers announces figures on stilts, holding crosses and symbolising the Orthodox clergy. Another scene depicts hard labour in the fields under the supervision of a whip-wielding overseer. Ukrainian dumky accompany the arrival of wandering blind minstrels — bagpipers, bandura players and lyricists — whose songs about Ukraine’s past the young Shevchenko eagerly listened to. Women reappear, now spinning yarn. Figures on stilts march with staffs in hand. Shevchenko joins the dance, entangling himself in threads unwinding from spinning wheels, symbolising the inescapable bonds of serfdom.

The sounds of Dmitri Shostakovich’s famous Waltz No. 2 evoke Shevchenko’s stay in St. Petersburg. Candlesticks, elegant costumes — flowing gowns, men’s tailcoats — and the poet whirling in a white coat create a dazzling tableau enhanced by falling snow, fire effects and spectacular fireworks. Russian officers on stilts appear, along with a card table. In the background, verses from Shevchenko’s poetry are heard: “There is no hell, no heaven, no God — only me.” A cry rings out: “Glory to Ukraine!” The waltz is abruptly interrupted by the arrival of Russian soldiers, the poet’s arrest and the reading of a decree banning him from writing and painting. Words of longing for his “beloved country, Ukraine” follow, along with anguished questions about divine punishment.

Scenes of drills and forced labour depict Shevchenko’s imprisonment in a penal colony. Fence elements symbolising confinement dominate the stage. The sight of pregnant women and their singing evoke memories of home and family, intensifying the prisoners’ despair. One of the strongest moments of the performance is the burning of structures resembling churches, manors and peasant huts. From atop his platform — symbolising the burial mound he wished for, overlooking Ukrainian villages, fields, cliffs and the Dnieper — the artist observes the devastation and desperate women seeking God’s help. The drama is reinforced by powerful male choral singing. The performance concludes with the display of nine self-portraits of Taras Shevchenko. Beside them stand pregnant women gazing at the image of the national bard as if at an icon — a man who embodies the fate of the Ukrainian people. The final verses resound with the words: God’s will! An optimistic sign appears in the form of a nest of storks and music calling for resistance against oppressors and a fight for national independence.The dynamism, spectacular scale, refined acting and extraordinary music earned the artists enthusiastic acclaim from the Zamość audience. Teresa Madej Zamosc online