Cherkasy Academic Regional Ukrainian Taras Shevchenko Music and Drama Theater

Stolen happiness

Ivan Franko

Director: Stanislav Sadakliev

One of the most popular social-psycological dramas in Ukrainian literature “Stolen Happiness”, was staged for the first time at the Cherkasy Theater named by T. Shevchenko. In the pursuit for wealth, Anna’s cruel, deceitful brothers ruined three human lives: Mykola, Anna, and Mykhailo. All of the characters in the drama wanted happiness, and all of them were deeply unhappy and Mykhailo paid with his life. The motivated plastic and musical design of the play and the addition of Ivan Franko’s poems by the theater’s director Stanislav Sadakliyev intensify the already sharp conflict of the love triangle of Mykola-Anna-Mykhailo and keep the audience in constant tension, prompting reflection on the great suffering of the characters in anticipation of illusory happiness. The past cannot be changed, but it is the past that weighs heavily on everyone in the present.

Duration: 1h 35min.