BRAMA, Oct 5, 2004, 9:00 am ET
Great Egg-spectations
Kyiv, Ukraine — On October 4th near the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, the Ukrainian civic group PORA ("The Time is Now") staged a 'pip' of a theatrical production called "The Traveling Egg" in which the main character is - a giant egg. The show ridicules the government's overblown reaction to the attack on Ukraine's Prime MinisterYanukovych by a projectile that evidence suggests was but a mere egg. In a video film that was widely distributed on the internet shortly after the incident, it appears that the PM fell to the ground after a moment's hesitation following the egg attack and was subsequently rushed to a hospital.
"The Egg is not blunt, but complex" — The Chickens
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PORA, a group of student activists, brought a giant papier-mâchè egg practically up to the Cabinet doors and distributed leaflets with slogans such as "A tough Egg", "Whom does an Egg bother?!", "Start with an Egg and you will come to the end!", "Shock from an Egg is funny!". As PORA advocates engaged in their demonstration, journalists and photographers snacked on hard-boiled eggs.
Taking their cue from the administration's egg-zaggerated reaction to the Yanukovych incident, the demonstrators feigned grievous offense to comments made by the authorities "against eggs". "Such expressions [as the administration has made] concerning the intellectual level of an egg are not good," said one unnamed PORA representative, "especially when they come from the people who represent our state." The egg has become "a thing that Mass Media manipulates and it is also a victim of political intrigues." An egg, after all, contains the beginnings of a live embryo. "A yoke died in the fight for democracy!" they exclaimed. A simple egg "was able to knock down a physically fit sportsman - all 120 kilograms of Prime-Minister Victor Yanukovich."
Reminiscent of a kind of Soviet-style "Theatre of the Absurd" there is a call for a criminal case to be opened against the administration for its "anti-egg campaign." The "players" want to officially have conferred upon an egg the title of Hero of Ukraine and call for the construction of a monument to the great Egg in Ploshcha Nezalezhnist (Independence Square) in Kyiv and in other oblast centers of Ukraine. A more credible set of demands included the dismissal of the Prime Minister and Heads of Ministry for Internal Affairs of Ukraine.
PORA's "expectations" may be a little too great, but its message to the government is clear: "Politics is a rotten egg; if broken, it stinks" (Proverb).
"The Traveling Egg" egg-spects to go on a national tour across Ukraine.
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