Let's start things one by one, because they are multi-layered. And as always in Bulgaria, we like to mix everything, make it gray and marry it.
First, it is not correct to talk about something that did not appear. Today is the premiere, we are talking before it, we have not seen the show. And that's incorrect. The only thing that allows me to stand before you now is that I will not see this play anyway, because I do not follow the production of the National Theater while Mr. Vassilev will be its director. This is a justification before my conscience for talking in advance about something that has not come out. I mean, we are not talking about the performance, we are not talking about John Malkovich, it is possible that this will be a quality comedy - I have no preconceived expectations. And I suggest not to talk about the theatrical situation itself.
We are facing, in a publicly visible way, something that is a very ancient tradition in Bulgaria - more than 100 years. It is that the highest places, not only in culture, but also in politics, everywhere, are occupied by some people, who Stoyan Mihailovski, exactly 100 years ago, called semi-cultured. He believes that they are much more dangerous than the uncultured. Sirak Skitnik 1920 calls them mediocre - the power of mediocrity. These are not people completely devoid of talent, they are not devoid of abilities. But these are people who don't know everything. Everything starts with them. They do not know tradition, they do not know the past, they do not enter into the context of what they are dealing with. Because it began with them, and as we see, it also ends with them. What am I talking about? This is a text written by Bernard Shaw in 1894. There are rumors that he was encouraged to write this text by a government other than the Bulgarian one. But these are rumours. What we have on the stage is an entertainment of the person with the typical colonial mindset, for whom the others are half-human, and whether they will be in the Balkans, whether they will be in Africa or Latin America - he does not care. He wrote a play to be funny. But this funny thing somehow affects the Bulgarians. I have read enough texts to understand how much the Bulgarians have not grown up, how much they cannot laugh at themselves. Wait a minute! Here is the semi-cultured man. He does not distinguish one from the other. He doesn't distinguish the irony I can apply to myself from the pain of a lie—that is. he does not distinguish truth from falsehood. At the moment I am not talking about the artistic qualities. I'm talking about what they suggest - they carry a lie, a historical lie. We all know that very well, don't we. Anyone who has read the play. And from here on out, make of this play what you will. You must remove the entire text to remove this lie.
This was commented in the FACTS studio in front of Lili Marinkova by Prof. Georgi Kapriev on the occasion of the protest in front of the "Ivan Vazov" National Theater, scheduled for later today, on the occasion of the premiere of Bernard Shaw's play "The Weapons and the Man". Here's more from his analysis on the subject:
It's about lying, it's not about creativity, aesthetics, etc. It is about the historical lie - about the people who started the Serbian-Bulgarian war on the Bulgarian side, about their simpletons, etc. I would very much like, speaking all this, for the nationalists to listen to me, so that they would stop they revile the opposite. I'm usually a sorosoid, a yellow fan and I don't know what else. And I don't mind being just that. But right now we're talking about something else. We are talking about the inability to know your own cultural and historical tradition. And look whose ineptitude we're talking about right now. Of course, not Malkovich's. The man 40 years ago placed it in New York, came here to Bulgaria - the word "Bulgaria" his ears are spinning from the play. Decided - let's do it here after so many years. He is innocent. He is a very big artist who has nothing to do with the debate we are having right now. He came and proposed a play to the director of the national institution National Theater. The director of the national institution, who is semi-cultured, does not know all that we are talking about now. Nor did the Bulgarian-Serbian war cross his mind, Bernard Shaw is a big name, abstract in his head. 1994 this play got its popularity at one time. And let's go. And then you meet people who complain about a lie, about them and their ancestors. Which will be presented to them from the stage of the National Theatre. This play was staged in Bulgaria, it was staged twice after 1990. And what - nothing, right? But this is the National Theatre.
Още от разговора може да проследите във Видеото