1980s "The Star-Child" Ukrainian Puppet Theater Poster
DESCRIPTION
Ukrainian poster advertising a Poltava Regional Puppet Theater adaptation of Oscar Wilde's short stories titled Zoriany Khlopchyk ; in English, "The Star-Child" or "The Star-Boy" after Wilde's story of the same name.
To the left of the forlorn child at the right of the poster, Zoriany Khlopchyk is written in striking yellow Cyrillic to match the child's outfit. Above, the poster introduces the production as an adaptation of Oscar Wilde's literary fairy tales by the playwright N. Davydova, almost certainly Nina Davydova. The text at the top of the poster clarifies that the production is sanctioned by the Ministry of Culture of the Ukrainian SSR and that it is being put on at the Poltava Regional Puppet Theatre. What text remains names the talent involved: director Yuri Sikalo (Honored Artist of the Ukrainian SSR), designer V. Kozub (likely Viktor Kozub), and an unidentifiable composer named as V. Shevchenko.
The Star-Child
The dejected child—never given more of a name in Wilde's story than "Star-Child"—looks so mopey here due to a transformation incurred from acting cruelly to his beggar mother. Initially a beautiful foundling, he's inexplicably turned hideous after mistreating his mother and thus spurred on to journey out of the arrogance of youth. In Wilde's story, the Star-Child undergoes a markedly more drastic transformation. There, his face turns toad-like and his skin scaly like a snake's, making him a pariah to virtually every community he encounters. Here, the shame and loneliness symbolized by that metamorphosis is more subtly communicated through a simple bowed head.
Two Languages on One Sheet
The bodies behind the production (the Ministry of Culture, the regional culture department and the theater itself) are named at the top in Russian, the language of Soviet administration. Everything addressed to the audience, from the title to the credits, is in Ukrainian. The poster is undated, but it was most likely printed in the 1980s, during the long tenure of Volodymyr Shcherbytsky. He led the Communist Party of Ukraine from 1972 to 1989 and favored Russification. In October 1989 Ukrainian became the state language of the Ukrainian SSR. A Soviet-era poster for the same theater’s Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, issued under the same ministry, carries its header in Ukrainian.
CONDITION
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