UKRAINOMANIA

Arthur-Schnitzler-Platz 1

1070 Wien

 

In 1920, Joseph Roth visited his old hometown of Brody, near Lviv in present-day Ukraine. He reported on this trip in the Berliner Zeitung: "Sometimes a nation becomes modern. Now it's the Ukrainians." A good hundred years later, the Volkstheater, following in Joseph Roth's footsteps, traveled to Lviv and, as in Vienna, presented an international co-production there – a revue against war, against gloom and despair.


"An interesting phenomenon is that as soon as a nation loses its independence, it begins to dominate in operettas and variety shows," Roth continues, coining the term "Ukrainomania" in this text. His lines convey more than just the sarcastic wit of an excellent columnist, who shortly afterwards, with bestsellers such as "The Spider's Web" and "Hotel Savoy," "Radetzky March," and "Job," would become a celebrated portrayer of a world and an existence between war and apparent peace.

But who was Roth, born in 1894, really? Even on May 30, 1939, when he was buried in exile in Paris, there was disagreement at his grave as to whether a Jew or a Christian, a monarchist or a socialist, a misanthropist, a great realist, or merely an alcoholic, was to be honored here. UKRAINOMANIA – this will be the revue of his life, a pandemonium populated by survivalists, "hotel patriots," and other figures from Joseph Roth's work. A dialogue between East and West, balancing gallows humor and mourning, between ensembles from Lviv and Vienna.

(Source: volkstheater.at)