However, did the 4 groups of viewers in Narodniy understand it –
- Sincere theater lovers
- Lovers of social events
- Bulgarian actors
- Unprepared for such a performance, but they came out happy that they did not miss it
“It was unique, but there was a slightly crazy person sitting next to me,” a viewer complained to a friend after the end of In the Solitude of the Cotton Fields.
“The director?” he suggests jokingly.
Russian director Timofey Kulyabin’s production, starring John Malkovich and Ingeborga Dapkunaite, is definitely the event of the season. And not only theatrically – ticket prices reaching BGN 400 and the stormy public outcry on the subject may have misled a large group into believing that this is also the secular event of the year. Which in a society like ours, fractured politically, culturally and emotionally, immediately gave rise to a noisy group on social networks, which immediately denounced the “snobs” and “ridiculous” who rushed to the theater.
And surely for some of those who experienced the Bulgarian premiere, the director is crazy, the text – incomprehensible.
This is simply the different theater of Kulyabin, Malkovich, Dapkunaite, which the Bulgarian audience deserved to see. Accustomed to overacting by the actors, fat humor and easy-to-digest texts, he was definitely unprepared for it. Although one look at the hushed salon said that they were probably similar lovers of more hackneyed humorous plots.
Almost 6 BGN per minute – that’s how much it cost for the spectators from the front row to watch Malkovich and Dapkunaite live.
A complex, philosophical text delivered brilliantly both with such powerful and absorbing acting by two great actors, and through the second plan of multimedia, visually enhancing their natural presence on stage.
Even those unprepared for the text and the action saw that they were witnessing the dark struggle between the hero – a lonely, tired of his life, lost direction broken man, and his alter ego. And that the two images, initially antagonistic and fighting for supremacy, gradually looked at each other, were horrified, amazed, recognized and merged. And together they set out for foretold self-destruction.
After the initial confusion of the text and the interpretation, the audience, who came without researching the play and its director, left happy to have become a part of this theatrical magic.
With lit up faces, at least two rows of Bulgarian actors applauded for a long time after the end of the performance. Among them are Deyan Donkov and Radina Kardzhilova, Orlin Pavlov, Eva Tepavicharova, Alex Alexiev, Elena Petrova, Lilia Maravilya, Lyubomir Kovachev, Hristo Petkov and others.
This was also one of the main groups of viewers at the premiere on Thursday night.
However, another one stood out clearly – of those who were visibly looking around to see who was marking their presence at such an important (and expensive) event. A couple stood out sharply, the lady in which turned out to be the folk singer Liana, And she did not go unnoticed, because she was sitting in a hat with a brim in the center of the salon. Besides, there wasn’t a single empty chair on the ground floor, despite haters’ sarcastic predictions that the show, which was played on three consecutive days, would not sell out. Director Vasil Vassilev discreetly looked in the salon until the lights went out to see if everything was alright.
A few empty seats could be seen at the end of the two balconies, which were also full.
It was upstairs, where the prices were more affordable – between 50 and 150 BGN, that was the group of sincere fans of the theater who longed to see Malkovich on stage. Neither in the appearance, nor in the conduct, nor in the comments of this group of the audience was there any false or superfluous pretension.
Of course, the salon was also full of many famous faces. Like Rosen Plevneliev with his wife Desislava, Solomon Passi and his wife Gergana, Mihaela Kalaidjieva, Prof. Daniel Valchev, Yordanka Fandakova, Rosen Zhelyazkov, Denitsa Sacheva, Dragomir Stoynev, the acting minister of e-government Georgi Todorov. Among the representatives of the media were people from Nova TV, which is a partner of this unique theater project, led by the head of the group Stefana Zdravkova, Vyara Ankova, Lora Krumova.
The audience tensed slightly from someone’s whistles when the baskets of flowers were brought on stage by the mayor Yordanka Fandakova, the head of the National Theater Vasil a Vasilev and the partners of the tour. Rather, however, people took it as disrespect to the two actors from the minority of politically engaged viewers
But no, there was no politics in the theater, what stormy interpretations immediately swirled on social networks. Rather, people in the audience resented that this part of the ceremony interrupted the two actors’ bows and took a few more moments from the audience’s interaction with them. Then, however, Malkovich and Ingeborga returned to the stage to unceasing applause.
In fact, not a single viewer went to the stars with a flower. Probably Malkovich’s name is so respectable that his Bulgarian admirers did not believe that they would be allowed to see him. Although the actor was walking freely on the streets of Sofia for the previous two days.
Meanwhile, on Friday, John Malkovich and photographer Sandro Miller opened their exhibition Malkovich, Malkovich, Malkovich: A Tribute to the Masters of Photography at the 500 Square Gallery. Mayor Yordanka Fandakova examined the exhibition and congratulated the two for their project. And the Minister of Culture, Nayden Todorov, presented Malkovich with a book-photo album, which presents the cultural heritage of Bulgaria.
