Trafika Europe 7 - Ukrainian Prayer

Sofia Andrukhovych

the indignant man. “I amsorry, I can’t do anything about it,” the fan opens abruptly, nervously beating the air like heavy cream. “Of course!” sigh the man dramatically. “What can you expect from this audience, what can you expect of its tastes? If they do not care to come to hear the great Proskurnytska, or a concert by the Boyan choir, or see the touring Lublin opera, but come to amuse themselves by the tricks of some conjuror.” “Ah, Mr. Yanovych,” resounds an ironic girlish voice. “But your learned presence is expected everywhere.” “And at that, in an embroidered peasant shirt!” hisses disdainfully the lady with a caravel on her head. Like ripples on water, giggles and timid muffled sounds of disparagement roll across the

theater, but at that moment the curtains shake and start opening, revealing the stage at the center of which stands a red-and-blue Chinese pagoda with several levels of roofs, dashingly upturned at the edges. Below them two neat bundles of straw hang on ropes. Silence falls, only occasionally broken by a squeaking chair, someone’s quiet cough or stomach rumbles. Thepagoda is lit from the top and from the sides; the rest of the stage is covered in semidarkness. The eyes of the audience thoroughly study this space, seeking to register the tiniest movement, single out a hint of action about to start. They hold back the spring of impatience, fully prepared to see the jumping out of some kind of otherworldly creature, the rolling out of a crazy-looking scarecrow,

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