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Some comments on the last week’s performance from the ProText 2 programme

I am glad that I have been able to attend at the second performance reading from the programme of the project ProText 2 of “36 Monkeys” (more information in my previous post). The play was "Pas Bouger" (“Not Moving”) by Emmanuel Darley and it was performed within the alternative space of a staircase landing in the central building of the Sofia University.

The reason that I am writing so extensively on this project is twofold – on the one hand I find the art form, the so called “onstage performance reading in non-theatrical spaces” really interesting, refreshing and bold, even more so in the increasingly stagnated climate (cultural, social and political) in Bulgaria and the team’s vision for alternative, independent and emancipated theater – invigorating; on the other – I am myself one of the founding members of the organization. This means of course that I am in a way biased, but nevertheless I also share the idea for proactive artistic/political activities and the strive for “emergence from our self-imposed immaturity”, which for the Bulgarian situation unfortunately doesn’t sound outdated at all.

Putting aside the apologetics, I find the play really interesting, both in its minimal aesthetics with only two characters – A and B, the one a quintessential “homo viator” an the other/s – the static, non-moving, settled multitude; and in its stage and scenery interpretation.

One of the main topics of the play is the identity question with all its nuances ranging from collective to individual, inherited to self empowered, single to multiple, traumatic to liberating and so forth, which is one of the broader themes that I am working on in my own scientific pursuits.

The next two performances from the ProText 2 programme are due to be scheduled.