“
Toys: A Dark Fairy Tale” by Saviana Stănescu, directed by Gábor Tompa (J.U.S.T. Toys Productions, USA) together with the performance “
This Beach” from the first day of the festival keep the living link between stage and real life. Those two contemporary texts witness for the damages that war can do over personal lives and destinies. We meet with two yazidi sisters separated by circumstances, and with their 4 names Clara/Fatma and Shari/Madonna. The younger was adopted in America while the other one has been left behind. It’s not clear how Shari has found Fatma, and it’s not important…. it’s like in a fairy tale - In an nonfigurative white space they reunite and share their dark experiences. So, it’s “a dark fairy tale”. Still it’s a fairy tale because the performance generously suggests that we should believe in the regenerating forces of human consciousness – the two sisters find the way to each other and go on together. The toys, disfigured and broken, had taken at their expense all the bad experiences the sisters had been trough. The stage is cleaned up of toys/bad memories as well as the memory of Fatma and Shari. At the end they have fun by dressing themselves as brides/princesses. They smile. They laugh. This happy end is so American and so very… human. And so very wishful… At the end of “This Beach” the local people start dreaming of the future of the migrant boy fleeing a war zone: “I hope he will find a better life… that he will have a nice big house, a car, no, two cars and a good job, that he will marry, will have 2 children and they will study in college…” The end of “Toys” is analogical – we all wish a good ending for the sisters, although we strongly doubt it’s possible…
“
Electra”, directed by
Andriy Zholdak (National Theatre of Macedonia, Skopje) has nothing to do with Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, although their names stay heroically next to the director’s name. This “
Electra” is composed, told and imagined by Andriy Zholdak, the famous rebel and creator of theatrical visual illusions. He took the free-wandering myth of Elektra and put it under the magnifying glass of his imagination. His performance has minimalistic text and big and impressive pictures. The set design (Zholdak and Lukas Noll) is heavy and large but in the same time creates the impression of intimate space, of an inside of a house (a royal one). A series of domestic murders are produced here during the 4 hours performance (Elektra’s family has serious problems, you know), alternate with songs, guitar solos, and meditative moments. Religious authority is represented not by the ancient gods but by the figure of a silent (mostly of the time) Jesus Christ, who gives indications to Elektra what to do (“You have to kill your mother.”) and punishes her if she oppose. It’s a very theatrical, visual performance that calls to our subconsciousness and meditative spirit. We hear sounds of the Aegean sea, rain, or we virtually smoke a cigarette with Elektra, after the act of the murder. The best thing about this show is that it is so free and unpredictable, we never know what's next.
Aglika Stefanova-Oltean
