site.btaBulgaria to Debut at Theatre Olympics

The play Silk, based on Italian writer Alessandro Baricco's novel and presented by the Plovdiv Drama Theatre, is the first Bulgarian production ever to be included in the official selection for the Theatre Olympics. It will participate in the 10th edition of the Olympics, which will take place in Hungary from April 1 to July 1, 2023, the Plovdiv Theatre said.

During the upcoming Olympics, 200 companies from 35 countries will stage 550 performances in 70 venues all over Hungary, the organizers said.

Participation in the Theatre Olympics is another major international achievement of director Diana Dobreva after her staging of Albert Camus' Caligula was presented at the World Theatre Festival in Shizuoka, Japan and her interpretation of Homer's Odyssey won the top award at the Ancient Drama Festival in Veles, North Macedonia.

The Theatre Olympics are a theatrical gathering established in Greece in 1995, blending the spirit of modernity and tradition, including the ancient Olympics. They soon became one of the largest and most prestigious events in world theatre. The founders were renowned directors and playwrights from Greece, Japan, the United States, Spain, the United Kingdom, Russia, Germany and Brazil. So far, the event has been held at irregular intervals of between one and five years, each time in a different country.

Silk will be performed at Csiky Gergely Theatre in Kaposvar, in the southwest of Hungary on May 15. It is about a man who reaches beauty through self-sacrifice in love. The platonic love story between a French silkworm merchant and a nameless girl living in a Japanese village builds up the metaphor of the road as a link between different civilizations. In the empire of beauty, man discovers the true dimensions of his own spirit, realizes the price of love and humility. To put it in a nutshell, the play is about the great beauty of love as the end point and goal of the human journey through life.

Silk was adapted for the stage by Alexander Sekulov. The crew also includes Mira Kalanova (stage set), Petya Dimanova (music), Marina Raichinova (costumes) and Petko Tanchev (video design). The production is part of the programme "Plovdiv Heritage - European Capital of Culture".

Dobreva's project was selected for the Theatre Olympics along with works by leading international theatre directors such as Ivo van Hove, Romeo Castellucci, Robert Wilson, Heiner Goebbels, Silviu Purcarete, Krystian Lupa and Declan Donnellan.

The Biblical ark has been chosen as the symbol of the 10th Theatre Olympics, and within them, the 9th Madach International Theatre Meeting. To use the Biblical parallel, people board "the ark of theatre" to save themselves and their values. The motto of the event is: "O Man, strive on, strive on, have faith; and trust!", a quote from The Tragedy of Man by 19th-century Hungarian writer Imre Madach.