Do you remember the feeling of the real wonder, when the toys got alive, started speaking and moving? It was given us by the local puppet show which the citizens of Zhytomyr know from their childhood. Here is the embodiment of the words said by great Stanislavskiy : «You have to act for kids the way you act for the adults,but even much better». And the couple of Huschunu make this wonder almost every day,as the «puppet master» is their profession
Victor:
«Noone had waited for my first coming to the stage, never even thought of that. At that time I was studying at the first or second grade at school and came to my sister’s job, who worked at the House of the film director in Andryshku, as I wanted to see an « out-of-stage» life. That day there was a concert for the Women’s Day at the stage. At first, everything went fine: sketches changed the miniatures, dances were preceded by the songs. And suddenly the tape-recorder stopped working, which caused a big pause, that must have been «filled» with something. My sister looked at me, grabbed me and so we went to the actor’s room. Even now I remember, that she had dressed me up, a boy with long fair hair, in the pink legs and a swimsuit and said : « Vitja, you have to come to the stage and perform something». So, I came and showed some « aerobics». After that I was involved in every performance»
Daruna:
«Victor is very good at reading humouristic monologues. And what is more he is unique because he knows all the roles. Even now I wonder: how does he manage to do this? The time goes, and he still knows those roles of those plays that are no longer exists on the stage. In my childhood I used to like singing and always did with the help of my hairbrush. On all my kids photos I stand in beautiful costumes and with my microphone-hairbrush. The most remarkable gift for me are the tapes with the fairytales which my dad presented me»
Victor:
«We got acquainted in 2001 at the first consulting lessons before the entrance exams. During the first hour of meeting with my future groupmates, I told that Daruna will be my wife, that made them laugh a lot. Daruna was not as the other girls…she diifered from the other because she was lit up, and resembled a Curly Sue, or a dandelion»
Daruna:
«That day all the girls and boys were smoking, laughing, and I was standing far away,as I was very shy. From time to time, I saw the glances of boys but at that time I had no time for them. The only thing that I had marked for myself is that Victor was one of the most strong entrants. We were very nervous as the selection was extremely strict: Natalia Timoshkina was choosing us( an Honored Artist of Ukraine, an artistic director of the Zhytomyr theatre of drama). At that time, some entrants graduated from school external, and graduated from school in time but waited a year to be in the course of this talented person. During the selection Natalia Mukolaivna put girls in a line and asked one by one to dance, sing and even to show the teeth. When i piping I saw that when she asked Victor to make a twine, he did and even stood on his arms. At that time he had his hair dyed, bright and with long hair. We started to date after a year from the moment we met each other, both were the strongest students of the course: me among the girls, Victor among the boys. When Natalia Mukolaivna got to know about our relationship, she said that we are going to be a very interesting couple, as we are extremely different»
Victor:
«We were dating for almost 5 years…when we were on our way to Kharkiv on the entrance exams, we thought that everything will last for two-three days. And it turned into two weeks. We went to the chummery to settle in, and we were said that there are no rooms. But in the chummery lived the Chinese…I do still remember how I used to seat in a hall of the university with a black «Hugo Boss» packet, where were all our clothes that we used the whole two weeks. I asked the watchwoman a phone to call home but she answered that the phone doesn’t work. So,I have repaired it and called our parent to tell where we are. In turn a kind watchwoman gave us a permission to live in a tiny class-holster sized 2×2, where there was only a piano. We could walk only around the instrument, and sleep under it. At the basement of the chummery I have found a foam and made a bed from it. During those two weeks we have made a cosy nest, we had some draperies and a table from the piano. The watchwoman made a news that here lives a man-electrician and the Chinese started to come up to me to repair them something. Some gave bananas, some money»
Daruna:
«At that time we were hungry as we ate only laminaria and yoghurts. So when at the entrance exams I saw that one mum gave her daughter a chocolate- I had almost lost my consciousness- so I wanted it…It was very hard, but we managed to overcome that. I remember that day when I called my mum from Kharkiv:
– Hello, mum, we had entered in Kharkiv.
– But you had to go to Rivne, I gave you only 100 UAH. How do you live there for two weeks?
– Vitja helps the Chinese, and they give us bananas»
Victor:
«At the moment, our kids are real theatre experts. They visit all the plays with a great pleasure. Solomija watches them and then comes to the actor’s room and tell who must work harder and what was great»
Daruna:
«Our kids had watched everything they are know in all the theatres, our friends-actors send them chocolate. It was this way: there were the touring of the Lviv theatre, the play «A Golden horned Deer». A play for not a common viewer: special puppets, lights, silence and a specific play. Our viewer doesn’t accept a festival performance it gives hardly for the little viewers. Our kids went out and said: «How cool it was, mum! Have you seen that the deer had no eyes but it hopped! It was alive! Have you seen its horns?» They were very excited. I understood that our kids have a taste. Among our plays they do really love «Nutcracker», «Jazukata Hves’ka». Taja was born near the International Theatre Day, Mia- to the Women’s Day. They are the gifts of fate for me»
Victor:
«I was the first who took Mia and Taja to the arms, I will never forget the glance of a doctor when she looked at me and Dasha ,when she saw a tanned and narrow-eyed newborn…that glance was led by a remarkable pause…I soothed her and said: « It’s ok, my father is kalmuk»
Daruna:
« Nowadays dead a People’s Artist Serhiy Efremov, who was once a director of the Society of the Puppet masters, prepared with Vitja a play for the international contest and asked him to show his hands. He observed them and said: «Those hands are the hands of the puppet-master»
Victor:
«We received lots of invitations to work by the profession. In 2007, when our family was just at the process of forming, we could take a free flight and go on. We went to Katovitze to the theatre «ATENEUM». The chief director of the theatre offered us an apartment, job and a very good salary. During that talk there was our nowadays dead director of the Puppet show Streltzov Vitalij Dmutrovuch. He listened to it, with his down, as he thought that he has already lost us. But sweared to him to work in a Puppet show for several years and didn’t come under the seduction. He believed in us, and loved us just like his own kids. We always think of him with the great warmth and thankfulness»
Daruna:
«In Zhytomyr there aren’t lots of the theatrical plays so we do always wait for the tourings of our colleagues. We like to communicate, share the working experience, and be in an artistic search. Our colleagues- our second family. We had an opportunity to live in different cities,but I love Zhytomyr. It is such a green,warm town. I hate the Underground, I wouldn’t like to spend my life by going to work this way. In Zhytomyr I walk to work for 15 minutes, passing the chestnut tree, people, whom I know, everyone says hello to you, the kids are shouting: «Hey! Look! Its a Snow Maiden!» Everything here is so dear!»