director: Ani Vaseva
text: Ani Vaseva, with included fragments by Boyan Manchev and Ani Vaseva from earlier Metheor performances, as well as texts written by the actors. The costumes in the performances are taken from earlier Metheor Performances, designed by Aglika Terzieva, Georgi Sharov, Stefan Donchev and Ani Vaseva.
photography: Boryana Pandova
with: Leonid Yovchev, Emona Ilieva, Stefan Milkov, Georgi Dimitrov, Greta Gicheva, Gordan Koev, Kalin Nikolaev, Lachezara Vasileva, Martin Dimov, Nicol Vasileva and Trayan Hristov.
Theatre performance about theatre, life and death.
“There is no present. You blink and the moment has already passed, the next one is coming. As I say this, it is already past, and the future is yet to come. I stand in the void. I am gone.”
“This is manipulation. I’ve made those people, the actors, say those things in a certain situation, and then used them in the performance. The manipulation is even greater. For when I say ‘I’, it’s not me who’s saying it, it’s the director who’s made those actors say those things. In principle, this is clear enough – it’s a director’s job to sit at the back and make other people do stuff. But in this case, we’re talking about pure mystification. Some people stand around and say that they are who they are and that they’re speaking in their own name, they’re saying ‘true’ things, when in fact it’s part of the set-up. And if a person is on stage and speaking, they’re already a character.
It’s very amusing, look, I’ll do this trick: I’m saying ‘I think green is a nice colour’, but it’s not really me who’s saying it, it’s written for me in the script. I’m colour-blind. If it wasn’t written for me in the script, I would never say it. I’m colour-blind! I’m colour-blind! I’m colour-blind! I’m not colour-blind! I’m colour-blind! And I’m not even truly colour-blind. I just can’t distinguish between grey and violet and between blue and green. The director takes advantage of her knowledge that I disagree with this statement, that I actually think it’s a matter of interpretation and that I can simply see more shades and more complex colours, and she makes me say I’m colour-blind. And even what I just said, again, it wasn’t me saying it, it’s in the script. I’ve said it, but in a different situation. When I say ‘I’, I mean the director. No, I, I’ve said it, me, Leonid, but each and every ‘I’ isn’t written by me, it’s she who’s writing it, yet when I say ‘I’, it’s me. That means in effect that my words are stolen from me and I’m being used. Life sucks. You can’t even be an ‘I’. Even those words aren’t mine. Again, it’s she who’s speaking. It’s she who said that. And that. Shut up! It’s her again. Ughhhh.”
A Play About Us was created with the support of the Bulgarian Ministry of Culture and Cinema House.