Yanina:<\/strong> I wanted to create a story based on personal experiences and present it in a theatrical solo format. Solo performances are in demand now for many reasons. I thought for a long time about what topic I could sustain interest in over time, one that would be accessible and understandable to audiences. I decided to talk about grief \u2013 many people go through it for various reasons these days. It seemed like an important and universal topic that anyone, anywhere in the world, could relate to. My father passed away a few years ago. We hadn\u2019t lived close for many years, and I thought I had come to terms with his passing. But at some point, I realized that it had actually been an extraordinary event for me \u2013 and that feeling had stayed with me. So I wrote a text about the five stages of grief, according to the theory of psychologist Elisabeth K\u00fcbler-Ross \u2013 denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Vlad and I discussed the idea, and that\u2019s how our collaborative work on the text and music began.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Vlad:<\/strong> I had been mulling over the idea of a project like this for quite a while too. I had participated in poetry readings structured as poem-music, poem-music. For example, I would play Children\u2019s Album<\/em> while poems for children were read. It worked well \u2013 I chose the music myself to fit the poems. But then I saw a few productions where music was not just an accompaniment, but a fully integrated participant. And later, I went to hear Henryk G\u00f3recki\u2019s Symphony No. 3<\/em>, the Symphony of Sorrowful Songs<\/em> \u2013 music from the 1990s. I was expecting a symphony performance by an orchestra, but instead I saw a whole theatrical production built around the music. That\u2019s when I really wanted to create a show where music would play one of the key roles \u2013 not just background for a play, and not a concert for the sake of the music, but an equal symbiosis. This idea would come and go, and then one day Yanina showed up \u2013 and it started. I\u2019m not good at initiating processes, but she is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yanina:<\/strong> We soon realized we needed a director who could work well with contemporary text. I called Ivanka after having seen her play Vanya Lives<\/em>. That\u2019s how Ivanka got involved in editing the script.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ivanka:<\/strong> We cut a lot, but we also added a lot. I told you back then: \u201cYanina, this is great, but you need to be even braver and take it to the end \u2013 you can\u2019t stop halfway. It\u2019s very important to reframe the protagonist\u2019s personal relationship with her father. Our grief is not about grief.\u201d The father figure is fascinating and multifaceted \u2013 if we had tried to invent such a character, I don\u2019t think we could\u2019ve done better. This is a perfect example of how life itself provides invaluable material. We worked on this for two months, and in April we began aligning the text with the music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Vlad:<\/strong> Wait, what do you mean two months? We worked on the raw text for two months, but the material has been developing for much longer. Ivanka joined and really helped us: with just the two of us, it wasn\u2019t going too well \u2013 Yanina would fly off into her stars, and I\u2019d drift into mine. At first I tried to adapt, but realized that wasn\u2019t my way \u2013 our format is different. It\u2019s a collaboration where two people exist in their own modes, but intersect to create something truly new.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ivanka:<\/strong> Question for you \u2013 are you happy with what we\u2019ve created?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Vlad:<\/strong> Excuse me, who\u2019s interviewing whom here?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ivanka:<\/strong> But I\u2019m curious!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Vlad:<\/strong> Am I happy? Yes! Some moments turned out really well. Others… still have room to grow. There\u2019s space to deepen the work. That\u2019s inevitable. In some parts, the music still plays a supporting role, and I wish we could give it more space. You can endlessly refine the score \u2013 it\u2019s an open-ended process, just like our story.<\/p>\n\n\n
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