{"id":124,"date":"2019-09-07T16:53:17","date_gmt":"2019-09-07T16:53:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/desorganisation.org\/play-about-us-full-text\/"},"modified":"2024-10-08T15:55:11","modified_gmt":"2024-10-08T15:55:11","slug":"play-about-us-full-text","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/desorganisation.org\/en\/texts\/plays\/play-about-us-full-text\/","title":{"rendered":"A PLAY ABOUT US"},"content":{"rendered":"

A PLAY ABOUT US<\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\u00a0A play about us<\/a>\u00a0was produced by Metheor premiered in 2018.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

A PLAY ABOUT US<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The atom is 99.99% void. If the atom is the size of planet Earth, the proton is as big as a football field. The rest is void. An entire hollow planet. Void, void, void. Atoms are void. They are made of void. We are hollow. We are much more nothing than we are something. We are nothing. The void fills me up from the inside. Dissolves me. I am a grid of translucent fibers, whose bonds are coming more and more loose. I am nothing. Everyone is nothing. Every human body is much more void than full. The substance of matter is an illusion. The physical laws of our universe are mystification. There is no way for me to be substantial if I am much more void than full. It is simply not possible. I am air and wind. I am cosmos. I part from myself, my bonds are coming loose. The structure of my flesh becomes looser and looser, foreign atoms and cells weave into my structure, the protons and neutrons cease to be concerned with each other, the molecules cling to one another, mingle their members, my cell walls dissolve, the cells begin to merge, to bleed into one another, the bones, the solid porous essence penetrates the soft tissues, the fibrous and vigorous muscles spill into the bones, the skin grows larger, sinks into the muscles and the air, becoming skin and muscle and air alike, I begin to dissolve into the space around me, to disintegrate into separate particles, to vaporize, the void in me grows ever larger, the particles part from one another, I lose my outline, the only thing that keeps me whole is the consciousness cogitating the particles, I feel, I feel with every particle, every speck of me feels everything, I feel the air, I feel the floor, I feel the walls, I diffuse, making my way down, down through the floor, through the building foundation, through the concrete, through the iron, through the dirt, through the rocks, through the little worms and moles, through the bugs, down, down to Earth\u2019s crust, simultaneously expanding in all directions, all around, all around, all around me is me and me only, walls, corners, chairs, I penetrate through you, I run through your bodies, your cells adopt mine, their walls dissolve, particles of my skin go through your skins, the grids of our structures dissolve and merge, my bones go through your bones, my muscles go through your muscles, my eyes go through your eyes, I leave particles of me inside you, I keep dissolving, through the outer walls, through the bricks, through the plaster, the street, the pavement, the trees, the people, the cars, through me run dogs, children, policemen, trams, birds, domes, rooftops, from Druzhba to Obelya, from Mladost to Lyulin, I am everywhere, I keep stretching, Pernik, the Iskar, Turnovo, Plovdiv, Rousse, Sinemoretz, Romania, Turkey, Italy, Bangladesh, Alaska, Patagonia, animals, animals, animals run through me, jungles, sands, glaciers, cities with millions of people, the subway runs through my sinews, trains rush through my veins, submarines float through my brain, waterfalls spill into my throat, I feel, I feel, I feel the entire earth, all people, all animals, snuffling, grunting, panting, crying, death, ecstasy, I feel everyone who dies, now everyone dies and I die with them and spasms convulse my flesh and pain, I feel pain, I feel, I feel doubt, I feel abandoned beings, oppressed beings, I feel calm as well, I feel solitary moments of joy and bliss, specks fall and shimmer in the window light, they look like golden dots, dancing in the morning air, while from the street outside waft in sounds of birds and wind only, and very rarely of an automobile, a child\u2019s body in a swing tied between the pear and the birch, the shadows of the branches are outlined onto the sheet stretched above the swing, so that the sun will not hurt the child\u2019s skin, seas, seas splash and give out a salty scent, I vaporize with the water splashes towards the sky, I keep going up, up through the clouds, through the fragile edifices of the clouds, through their domes and layers and arches, up, up through the atmosphere, up to the open space, so that I can burst inside its pitch-dark immensity, so that I can dissipate all around its vast void, my atomic distance is as large as that between Earth and Venus, then as that between the Sun and Pluto, I am cosmos, as I am made of the same stuff as everything else, of fermions, quarks, leptons, bosons, I am the Sun and the rings of Saturn and the moon seas and the earth volcanoes and the Amazon and the rubber plantations and the thousands of people who die there every day, beaten, mutilated, raped, I am the rubber balls that children play with, the children in the streets of Bombay, New York, Aleppo, I am the bombs that shred the human flesh to pieces, I am the human flesh, shredded and pulsating, I am the fist that smashes the jaw and the jaw that cracks under the smash, I am everything, I am you. I am Nicole.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

INTRO<\/strong><\/p>\n

-\u00a0This will be one long performance.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0There will be yelling.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0There will be no dramatis personae.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0Probably there will be no conflict either.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0There will be no story, no moral.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0Aaaaaah.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0An angel of silence will not fly by. \u00a0<\/p>\n

-\u00a0Oh, it just flew by.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0This performance was supposed to be about Hoffmann.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0About the writer Ernst Theodor Hoffmann.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0As we contemplated the project I invited eleven actors.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0Why are you speaking in the first person singular? You invited no one.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0Then it seemed to me that there is no way this Hoffmann show should require so many people, that it had to be a performance with only one or two persons on stage and a lot of text.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0So it seemed to you?<\/p>\n

-\u00a0And the actors had already been invited.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0Besides, for some time now the idea of a play for us, about what we do, has been taking shape.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0For us?<\/p>\n

-\u00a0Not only because we are vain and self-obsessed and very conceited, but also because it\u2019s time to specify certain matters.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0Like this one, for example: you cannot be in a theater, watching a performance and fiddling with your phone at the same time. Even if you don\u2019t like what you are seeing, you owe respect to the work of those who made the performance. Respect and liking are not necessarily related. The light of your phone distracts the viewers around you and the actors that at this very moment wish you the very worst. Yourself personally.<\/p>\n

He is taken away.<\/em><\/p>\n

-\u00a0But this is petty! The play for us should not begin with mentions of mobile phones!<\/p>\n

-\u00a0It should begin with what, then?<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

-\u00a0Alright, let\u2019s start from the beginning.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0In 2010 we performed A Dying Play.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0You were ten years old back then.\u00a0<\/p>\n

-\u00a0Now, is this a Play For Us \u2013 about those who are now on the stage \u2013 or is it about \u2018Metheor\u2019?<\/p>\n

-\u00a0Shhhhhh.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0But I don\u2019t understand!<\/p>\n

-\u00a0In 2010 we performed\u00a0\u00a0A Dying Play.<\/p>\n

-It was performed\u00a0by the actors Vyara Kolarova, Leonid Yovchev and Petar Genkov.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0You didn\u2019t even see this performance.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0Neither did you.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0This was a performance about dying \u2013 about the feeling that living equals dying, since with every passing minute of life we draw near to death.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0And this is not a bad thing.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0There was euphoria, there was rage, there was joy and pleasure in this performance.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0You\u2019re about to drive me crazy already.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0Are they talking about \u2018Metheor\u2019 again?<\/p>\n

-\u00a0There was despair as well.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0But not the type of despair that came about afterwards, which transpires in our latest performances \u2013 the despair, in which nothing could happen anymore, the despair, in which life does not pass away, but accumulates and sometimes you only want it gone.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0What our latest performances!<\/p>\n

-\u00a0(whispering) the \u2018Metheor\u2019 ones!<\/p>\n

-\u00a0This is probably why we want to play this performance now \u2013 to fancy ourselves experiencing the same happiness.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0Of course, people glorify the past.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0Previously, we wanted to be gone as well.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0It\u2019s no accident that A Dying Play is a dying play.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0The performance Total Damage was devoted to the permanent revolution and mediocrity, to \u2018everything\u2019 vs \u2018something\u2019, to \u2018totally\u2019 vs mnyaaa<\/p>\n

-\u00a0To the feeling we are always seeking the Apocalypse, striving for the spectacular explosion of the world, but envisaging it as something constant.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0And these two things are mutually exclusive. You can either have a total blast and complete annihilation, or you can have constancy, compromises, adaptation. You cannot live in a constant state of explosion. It\u2019s not possible to enjoy a constant pleasure, you have to pay the penalty as well.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0Why isn\u2019t it possible? I want a never-ending Apocalypse, always to the end, always everything and nothing, not just a something.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0In the beginning of Total Damage the actors Leonid Yovchev and Galya Kostadinova cry for more than a minute, facing the audience.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0One of the tricks of this effect is the suspension of emotion \u2013 you see the trick, yet it has an effect on you.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0This is the principle, on which the whole performance is built.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0And we\u2019ll try to make it even more obvious.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0Now these actors here will cry before you, you will know they\u2019re going to do it and yet, and yet\u2026<\/p>\n

-\u00a0We have agreed to say what we do while doing it.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0When does the theatre cease to be theatre at all?<\/p>\n

-\u00a0Who can really say what theatre is and what isn\u2019t? Is this written anywhere?<\/p>\n

-\u00a0We would like to see if the theatre still remains a theatre in the absence of all \u2018conditionality\u2019 (in big quotes).<\/p>\n

-\u00a0Our presupposition is, of course, that this is so \u2013 is this schizophrenia not part of every performance \u2013 that it does takes place for real, yet we know these are actors, performing preassigned tasks.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0There\u2019s something wrong with you!<\/p>\n

\u00a0Actors crying.<\/em><\/p>\n

- Is this now for real or is it make-believe? Are these people crying or pretending? Why are they crying? Why are you crying?<\/p>\n

- I cannot cry.<\/p>\n

- I am Leonid and I come from Pleven.<\/p>\n

- I am Stefan and I am a certified veterinary technician.<\/p>\n

- I am Emona and I grew old.<\/p>\n

- I am Georgi and I have not yet made it up.<\/p>\n

- I am Gretta and I have squeezed the teats of a little sheep to milk it in a little copper.<\/p>\n

- I am Martin and I will not have another gin.<\/p>\n

- I am Luchezara and I am Martin\u2019s nightmare.<\/p>\n

- I am Gordan and I struggle with gravity.<\/p>\n

- I am Kalin and I am more asleep than awake.<\/p>\n

- I am Nicole and I am lost today.<\/p>\n

- I am Trayan and my heart skips a beat.<\/p>\n

Actress\u00a0laughing.<\/em>\u00a0<\/p>\n

-\u00a0This is manipulation. I have made those people, the actors, say these things in a certain situation, after which I have employed them in the performance. The manipulation is even stronger. For when I say \u2018I\u2019, that\u2019s not me who is saying it, it\u2019s the directress who has made these actors say these things. In principle, this is clear enough \u2013 it\u2019s a director\u2019s job to sit in the back and make other people do stuff. But the present case is pure mystification. A few people on the stage say they are who they are and speak on their behalf, saying true things in quotes, while really this is part of the scheme. And should one appear on a stage and speak, one is already a personage, a character.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s very amusing, look, I\u2019m playing this trick \u2013 I\u2019m saying \u2018I think green is a nice color\u2019, but it\u2019s not really me who is saying it, it\u2019s in the script. I\u2019m color-blind. If it wasn\u2019t written for me in the script, I wouldn\u2019t say it. I\u2019m color-blind. I\u2019m color-blind. I\u2019m color-blind. I\u2019m not color-blind. I\u2019m color-blind. And I\u2019m not quite color-blind. I just can\u2019t make a difference between grey and violet and between blue and green. The director takes advantage of her knowledge of my disagreement with this statement, that I in fact think it\u2019s a matter of interpretation and that I can simply see more nuances and more complex color schemes, and she makes me say I\u2019m color-blind. And even what I just said was not me saying it, it\u2019s in the script. I have said it, but in a different situation. When I say \u2018I\u2019, I mean the director. No, I have said it, me, Leonid, but each and every \u2018I\u2019 is not written by me, it\u2019s she who\u2019s writing it, yet when I say \u2018I\u2019, it\u2019s me. This practically means my words have been stolen from me and I have been employed. Life is something disgusting. You cannot even be an \u2018I\u2019. Those words aren\u2019t even mine. Again, it\u2019s she who\u2019s speaking. She\u2019s saying that too. That too. Shut up! It\u2019s her again. Ughhhh.<\/p>\n

Actress\u00a0laughing.<\/em><\/p>\n

- We\u2019re all going to die. One day, every one of us will die.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0I\u2019m not going to die.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0Every one of you as well.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0I\u2019m going to die too.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0Say, how can you call yourself Emona!<\/p>\n

-\u00a0For some time now, I\u2019ve been having the feeling that my life has ended and everything I live through is only stuffing \u2013 filling up the time until I die. The annoying thing is that it doesn\u2019t stop me from getting angry about things that, given the fact that life is over, are utterly unimportant.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0I cannot believe that I, who am now looking at my hand through my eyes, will ever die.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0This is an illusion, this is an illusion.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0Happiness overwhelms everything when it\u2019s over-intensive, when it equals madness, when it\u2019s unreasonable. A moment of peace and beauty may last for only a short time, since after a while your mind begins to produce obscenities. The clouds, the light on the sloping ceiling, pushed back and forth by the sea waves, the smell of salt, the morning tea in the lounge \u2013 all this is capable of filling in the horrifying void for a very short time.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0Things end.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0How many times a year, a month, a week, a day do we find ourselves seized by the shattering sensation that \u2018I am a horrible, a truly horrible human being\u2019?<\/p>\n

-\u00a0We become our mothers and fathers.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0A performance of despair. Of despair and unwillingness.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0Of survival. After all, it matters little whether you do something out of desire or despair. Either way, you still do something, and what is inevitable will always remain inevitable.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0The rain the rain falls and washes away and washes away nothing<\/p>\n

-\u00a0We play a play for us. About what we want.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0I\u2019m waiting for time to end.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0Stupor.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0To whom do I tell I want to die?<\/p>\n

-\u00a0To me.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0I want to die.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0All plays and performances we\u2019re interested in are either about the horror of living, or about the horror of dying. Or both.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0All plays and performances we\u2019re interested in are either about the horror of living, or about the horror of dying. Or both.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0All plays and performances we\u2019re interested in are either about the horror of living, or about the horror of dying. Or both.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0All plays and performances we\u2019re interested in are either about the horror of living, or about the horror of dying. Or both.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0Oh, I don\u2019t know, I don\u2019t know. Ich sterbe!<\/p>\n

He\u00a0dies.<\/em><\/p>\n

-\u00a0There, I will now perform an ingenious impersonation of Hamlet: \u2018To be or not to be\u2026\u2019<\/p>\n

-\u00a0It doesn\u2019t happen to you. It must happen to you. No, you\u2019re not doing anything. Look at me. Look at me. Have you found\u00a0the kernel\u00a0of the role? Well? I\u2019m asking you! Where\u2019s the kernel of your role? Where is your horizon? Where did you study at all? So, here\u2019s what you have \u2013 desire, obstacle, overcoming of obstacle. Don\u2019t you get it? This is BASIC. This is very complex stuff. You need talent for it. A vocation. Come on, feel it, feel it! No, no, you really are worthless. You have changed. You were a different person. You have become technical. And you\u2019ve put on weight. And what are you looking at me! It\u2019s you who is not doing their job well, not me. Listen, boy. I have read so much, have learnt so much, am so prepared that I know everything, I know everything! I\u2019m a director, I\u2019m a director! I know nothing, nothing, nothing. I don\u2019t know what I do! The actors frighten me. The audience frightens me as well. I\u2019m a great director, I\u2019m an author! Please, help me, help me, please!<\/p>\n

-\u00a0There, I will now perform an ingenious impersonation of Hamlet: \u2018To be or not to be\u2026\u2019<\/p>\n

-\u00a0There is no way you can perform ingeniously a monologue \u2013 the monologue is part of the whole. Value is only available in progress. Taken by itself, it loses gravity. There might be some virtuosity, it might even bring tears to someone\u2019s eyes and so what. The monologue is a monologue and is part of a whole play. And it\u2019s you who said that.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0To be or \u2013 that is not the question!<\/p>\n

-\u00a0I love Dostoevsky, I love Dostoevsky!<\/p>\n

-\u00a0Oh well, why do you love Dostoevsky?<\/p>\n

-\u00a0Oh come on, now.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0What do you like about him?<\/p>\n

-\u00a0He\u2019s a genius! You shall not lay a finger on the genius!<\/p>\n

-\u00a0Where?<\/p>\n

-\u00a0I shall not lay a finger on him, alright, but you tell me what you like about him.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0He writes about the soul! And beauty will save the world!<\/p>\n

-\u00a0There are many ugly things in Dostoevsky\u2019s work. There is violence, meanness, pettiness. What is beautiful, anyway? Are you beautiful?<\/p>\n

-\u00a0You shall not lay a finger on the genius, I will not permit it, leave Dostoevsky\u2019s corpse in peace, do not mock the dead writer, this is blasphemy!<\/p>\n

She is taken away.<\/em><\/p>\n

-\u00a0You just want to relieve yourselves of all your frustration with the audience and the theatre. You\u2019re bitter because you\u2019re unable to make a normal performance.<\/p>\n

She is taken away.<\/em><\/p>\n

-\u00a0And you\u2019re using the actors, you\u2019re making them part of a problem that concerns you and you only!<\/p>\n

She is taken away.<\/em><\/p>\n

-\u00a0There is no normal theatre anymore. No normal performances. Just one or two, from time to time. A true, normal theater, for a normal audience. I\u2019m normal! I want normal stuff! Fruitcakes! This is perverted! I cannot, I cannot bear it! I don\u2019t want to go to the theater, I don\u2019t want to!<\/p>\n

He is taken away. He comes back.<\/em><\/p>\n

-\u00a0This is not normal, really.<\/p>\n

He is taken away. He comes back.<\/em><\/p>\n

-\u00a0So, here\u2019s what normal is \u2013 me getting married, buying a car.<\/p>\n

He is taken away. He comes back.<\/em><\/p>\n

-\u00a0So, I want a car, a house\u2026<\/p>\n

He is taken away. He comes back.<\/em><\/p>\n

-\u00a0I want a wife, children, a dog, a house with garden. We are twenty-four years old already! It\u2019s time we settled down and procreated. I have a driver\u2019s license. I can drive. I can make children. I can procreate. I can be a truly accomplished member of society. Not some\u2026 gender confused monstrosity! That\u2019s what you are. A sect! Fruitcakes of all sorts will drive us away, the ordinary, normal people who want the most ordinary things, nothing special, as ever \u2013 I make money, you give birth to children, the dregs get wiped out, the streets cleaned, keep the children safe, do not mess with the future, right, right, right? We all want this, don\u2019t we? Don\u2019t we want a bright future? Without dirty, odious\u2026 the streets are full of people that stink. They reek! Why don\u2019t they take showers? I take showers! We must cleanse them. I\u2019m right, right? Any normal person will second me. And why should money be spent on the elderly and the sick and the odious and the crippled and the abnormal. They have one foot in the grave anyway. Sometimes both feet. Ha-ha-ha. The law of the jungle, Darwin said it. I can smash your mug. Therefore you\u2019re out. Heyyy, you\u2019re getting on my nerves. Oh boy, are you getting on my nerves! I\u2019m very nervous! I have pains in my liver, my liver suffers because of you. I\u2019m going to puke. I\u2019m feeling sick. No, really, I\u2019m feeling very sick. This one, when I see him and I nearly\u2026 you\u2019re cancer. In a healthy body. In the healthy body of our community you are a stinking puss hole. Your skin is flabby. Your meat is bitten all over. You\u2019re punctured. And what are you running riot for? Why are you whining at all? What do you want? What do you want from me? Why are you looking at me? I\u2019m fine! I\u2019m normal. I\u2019m the very norm. What are you even talking about? Theatre is about telling a story. There must be a conflict! There must be a sequence of actions, obstacles to be overcome, intentions, while you, you\u2026 you only squirm! I cannot bear it! I\u2019m ready to jump out of my skin. I feel like my skin is coated in embers from the inside and scorches the organs, the muscles, my bones. I jump out, I jump out of myself, I cannot bear it, all of you, I cannot stand you. Fruitcakes! I don\u2019t want to, I don\u2019t want to go to the theatre!<\/p>\n

-\u00a0As an official representative of \u2018Metheor\u2019 I would like to state I do not identify with this. \u2018Metheor\u2019 is concerned with much more important matters and we do not need cheap confrontations. We deal with the extraordinary. With the exceptional. With the feeling you are living a hundred lives at the same time. With the excessive. With childhood. Not with trite oppositions. People are complex. Having a liking for classical art does not mean you are homophobic or racist. We have a liking for classical art. We have a liking for everything, as long as we like it. Wonders are everywhere. We believe the stream of thought, the excitement and the inspiration are not prerogatives of the old or the new, or the Moscow Art Theatre, or the Schaub\u00fchne Theatre, or Beethoven, or Lydia Lunch. We favor the impossible. We favor what is more. We want everything.<\/p>\n

He is taken away.<\/em><\/p>\n

-\u00a0Why did I take up stage acting? I don\u2019t quite recall when, how and why. Whenever someone asked me this question I would always answer like that, and of course I would add that it had always been in me. I\u2019ve wanted to be an actress for as long as I can remember. I would tell people I loved singing and dancing, and since I didn\u2019t know which one I should engage in professionally I at once figured that the theatre gives me the possibility of combining music and dance, and even cinema and what not. A little bit of all, only with a much more ravenous hunger for glory, alas\u2026 This is what I recently used to think I was thinking.<\/p>\n

I cannot keep deceiving myself. It\u2019s curious how people fabricate a parcel of stories and justifications only to glaze over the truth or, to be more precise, to invent it for themselves, since it very often turns out even they cannot explain to themselves WHY ALL THIS IS NECESSARY.<\/p>\n

Only now I understand why I took up stage acting. I\u2019m afraid that I\u2019m good for nothing else. You can do anything on the stage, I guess. You can be any one. Am I myself?... Is there a \u2018self\u2019 at all? Throughout your whole lifetime you play games, just as I used to play as a kid, only now it\u2019s on stage\u2026 and yes, it\u2019s a little more complicated, having to do with genres, styles, schools and all sorts of made-up nonsense. All in all, I only wanted to play haha\u2026 and I\u2019m only nineteen, there are even people who play in their forties and fifties too. I\u2019m afraid all this is just a game, an illusion. Everything is so giddy. So, today you have a rehearsal, tomorrow \u2013 a premiere \u2018oh, ah\u2019\u2026 the day after tomorrow, however, you sit over a book at home and wait. You wait and wait, and wait, and wait\u2026 and hope \u2013 a quote from The Count of Monte Cristo. Nothing is certain. Yet, I\u2019m an over-sensitive sissy who after all needs certainty. I don\u2019t know what to do, nor do I know what I want. Should I take up something else, seek certainty or, despite my disappointment, never stop believing?... To believe in a director who doesn\u2019t know what they are doing and how much I want to help this person, so that we can do something together, and I just want to cry so much, and cry I will, and tomorrow I will be smiling, and SO WHAT?<\/p>\n

To conclude: the theatre saved me from my fear of failure in life, but what will save me from failure in the theatre once the theatre becomes my one and only life\u2026<\/p>\n

-\u00a0In my previous life I mowed ryegrass, tended tomatoes, pricked out peppers, castrated pigs. On the whole, I mutilated plants and animals. I decided to become an actor, so that I can mutilate people as well.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0Why, what is this!?<\/p>\n

-\u00a0It\u2019s theatre.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0That\u2019s not theatre, it can\u2019t be theatre.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0What is it then?<\/p>\n

-\u00a0It\u2019s nothing.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0Who says what theatre is? Is it written anywhere?<\/p>\n

-\u00a0What does this have to do with the rest of the performance? I don\u2019t understand.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0I don\u2019t believe in a \u2018good\u2019 or a \u2018bad\u2019 performance (because how do you define the criteria, how do you compare different works of art, how?), I believe in a performance that is true to its intent. Not a performance that states it has to do, for example, with \u2018sex and violence\u2019 or the \u2018the poor little man against the big bad system\u2019, or \u2018the soul vs materiality\u2019, or \u2018misery vs luxury\u2019, but in fact the directors couldn\u2019t care less. The directors just think it\u2019s going to be a super-cool performance and they will become super-cool directors, and sign super-cool contracts, and stage their performances in Berlin, and go to vacations in the Maldives. It\u2019s the same with actors, isn\u2019t it? A \u2018role of one\u2019s career\u2019, they say. You get the role of your career and from then on everything comes right by itself. And you can hang out with the cool guys. You can explain how matters stand. You can choose among the coolest stuff. But then again, my friend, when I look at you on the stage, there\u2019s no way I could believe what you\u2019re doing excites you or holds any value to you. If your choices lack ethical value, if you just adapt to the overall situation and scrounge around, how could I allow myself to think and feel along with you when you\u2019re on the stage professing justice or seemingly taking pleasure in acting? How?<\/p>\n

-\u00a0I take pleasure in acting.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0You can see everything on the stage.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0No one can lie to anyone.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0Intents become clear immediately.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0But sometimes the audience likes to be deceived.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0We all like to be deceived sometimes.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0Oh, drop the frills. Besides, there are much more important things.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0Your frills are frillier than mine.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0There are no prescriptions.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0Stop preaching.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0This sounds so arrogant, as much as you try to explain what theatre is and what isn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0If there are no prescriptions, how can you say what is allowed and what isn\u2019t?<\/p>\n

-\u00a0It turns out we\u2019re the good guys, while the rest just don\u2019t get their heads around us, huh?<\/p>\n

-\u00a0I\u2019m not in the least interested.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0So the theatre is supposed to tell stories.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0What if there is no story, what then?<\/p>\n

They murder\u00a0him.<\/em><\/p>\n

-\u00a0And be meaningful too.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0What?<\/p>\n

-\u00a0And spiritual.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0But when will I die?<\/p>\n

-\u00a0And where is the spirit located?<\/p>\n

-\u00a0Ah, well.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0No, please, tell me, where is this spirit, I want to know. Here, here, here? Around? No?<\/p>\n

-\u00a0You mean the body.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0I am my body! The head is part of the body! Thought is of the body! What you call \u2018spirit\u2019 is a mystification, an elementary explanation of all complex thought processes, sensations, wonders! Superstition!<\/p>\n

-\u00a0That\u2019s base materialism. Leve some room for the inexplicable.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0Well, how can it be inexplicable if everything is explained through it? This is an explanation, but it\u2019s the simplest one available: \u2018Dostoevsky is about the spirit\u2019, which in your language means \u2018we see only what we want to see\u2019. But when it comes to children and violence, and the worldly injustice that cannot be explained, excused or balanced, you keep silent.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0Quiet, already.<\/p>\n

- It must be clear enough what a performance is about. For example, sex and violence. Or how to overcome a particular desire or fear. Or how someone wants to depart, but can\u2019t or they\u2019re in love, thus ruining themselves. Things like that.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0No, I don\u2019t understand any of this. It\u2019s just not my kind of stuff.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Where are all the sunrises of the world, the sunrises of endless opportunities, merged with the sunsets of the reverse side of the world. There gather all the things that are not. Dogs, fountains, empty spaces, hairs, fingers, backs, holes, flabby bits, swellings, lacks, mussels, chestnuts, trousers, dog collars, locations, screens, skins, windows, profiles, we as completely different people, in different shapes and different places, their future and our past and it isn\u2019t the same at all, and it isn\u2019t funny at all, nothing of this is funny at all, that those places are now gone, does it mean they have practically never existed, does it? That those rain-sprinkled windows and thunder-clouds over the mountain, that the socks tossed onto the floor and exactly this shoe on the curb, that the naked leg over the chair and the eyeglasses rim, that all of this and all of everything else is just a mirage, that it is part of the world conspiracy of a memory that is there only to tease is. Does it? And the past joy and despair don\u2019t exist, since their objects are now only marks on a sheet of paper or photo paper, or digital memory. Does our past exist, does it exist, or the joy is impossible because it is always part of what not only doesn\u2019t exist anymore, but also never existed? The sunsets have hidden inside the cave of the misshaped pancakes, the nail clippings, the dog hairs, along with all the needless things and no one is there to let them out, what remains is only dense cozy darkness where everything fades to nothing and there is nothing past and nothing whatsoever.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The fear. This is about the fear. The fear of everything impending. The fear of breathing. The fear that the worst is always yet to come, that everything is already past. This is probably why we are playing a performance about us, about our previous performances, because of the fear that much more is buried within them than we think, while the future will only bring bones, hairs and nails, only remnants of things that will never come to exist, that our future is the past of a very miserable person. The fear that any moment of happiness can be the last, that perhaps from now on the only thing awaiting us is the swamp of despair. I fear living. I fear dying. There is no time for this, no time. Life is so short. You barely have the time to turn around and you are already dead. I will not exist much more than I will ever exist, on Earth there will be billion billion billion times more time without me than with me. Chop-chop and it passes away. Chop-chop and it passes away. Chop-chop and it passes away. There is no time, no time, it runs out, time runs out, everything runs out, flows away, you cannot even touch it. When you sink into it you get stuck, bound by thick mud, you get stuck in its quicksand, wet grains of sand wrap the feet, the shins, the knees, the thighs, the pelvis, the waist, the water flows away and the sand grows solid as concrete, and as you\u2019ve had the feeling that time slips through your fingers without in the least sensing it slipping away through them, like a breath, like a breeze, like a thought, you are now stuck in time and it will not flow and you understand, you know that an awful lot is yet to come for you and you have to live through all of it with all its nastiness and bullshit and it will be getting worse and worse and even if there should be any solitary moments of happiness they could not counterpoise the pain, the disappointment, the loneliness, the lack of meaning. But this is all we have, this single moment of all the monstrously infinite time, this blink. We have no other time, no other chance. Only this one. Only in this life will I be able to cross this street, to open this window, to look at this hand, to touch this wall, to dream this dream, only now and nevermore, nevermore, the nevermore is so much more than the evermore, I want this evermore, I want every part of it, I do not want to lose, I do not want to lose!<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

ACTORS<\/strong> CHOIR<\/strong> N<\/strong>1<\/strong><\/p>\n

We, the actors<\/p>\n

We are empty funnels<\/p>\n

Through us run texts<\/p>\n

They mount<\/p>\n

We resound.<\/p>\n

Within us the texts smolder as embers<\/p>\n

Entangled in a formless trunk<\/p>\n

We are empty funnels<\/p>\n

We resound<\/p>\n

Our infernal maw is a tube.<\/p>\n

The trunk<\/p>\n

The trunk<\/p>\n

Settles inside us<\/p>\n

Presses our organs<\/p>\n

Pushes<\/p>\n

Sometimes smashes them<\/p>\n

Smashes them<\/p>\n

Smashes them<\/p>\n

Smashes them<\/p>\n

We puke bile.<\/p>\n

We are the actors<\/p>\n

We are the deserters of life<\/p>\n

We are the amateurs of the stage<\/p>\n

We are the voyeurs of the extreme states.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0It\u2019s curious how a performance gradually takes shape. Separate parts interconnected by a common course, by a sensation and by a multitude of radiating thoughts that gradually merge, overspill into one another, affect one another, and from a certain point on you can no longer touch anything anymore. You cannot touch the performance because every displacement would disrupt the balance of the already created whole. A performance has a life of its own. My favorite is the beginning, when everything is possible, when the show may take any possible direction, when it\u2019s still nothing, but is about to become something, when it\u2019s still in the wasteland of Arizona or Utah and the wind slams the solitary dry trees, scattered among sand and rocks, whence you can set out on a journey to jungles, rivers, seas, the sky, the cosmos, volcanoes, glaciers, fabulous unknown lands. And you\u2019re still in the beginning of the road, having no clue where it might lead you, but if you look at the reverse side of chronology, if you look from the future to the past, the performance is already there, the path is already traced and it leads from the coral reef, through the shore, the sands, the deserts, the steppes, the red mountains, on to the wasteland, reaching my feet as I stand on the road. Or the road starts from Earth\u2019s core, goes through layers of magma, iron, rocks, silicon, through granite and basalt, through dirt, through minerals and metals, through skeletons and fossils, through remnants of past lives, through corpses and roots, through germs, worms and moles, so that I can burst through the dirt and find myself in the beginning, where the performance had not yet started and had already been progressing towards its end, like us when we were born, we were a mass of pink flesh and liquids and didn\u2019t know, probably didn\u2019t have quite the thing to know with, to know what knowledge is, we didn\u2019t know what was coming\u2026\u00a0all steps that brought us to this day, when we\u2019re sitting in this theatre hall, watching this stage, seeing these actors, the steps that brought us to the theatre hall, where we started from, how we woke up in the morning, how we slept during the night, what we dreamed of, how we fell asleep, next to someone or alone, what things came into contact with our bodies \u2013 sheets, clothes, hair, our own skins, what we did during the day, whom we talked to, whose voices we heard, whose faces we saw, and still way back to how we began the week, what spaces we inhabited, what smells, what touches we sensed, and still way back, to the summer, what places we visited, what streets we walked along, where our feet treaded, and still way back, to how we began the year, with whom, where, whose skin we touched, whose breath we felt, and still, still way back, back, through months, years, to the time when we were young students, how we felt our bodies back then, how we moved, how we saw and heard ourselves, and still way back, back to our childhood, what sounds we heard then, what smells we sensed, and still way back when we were babies, what we saw then, what we felt, and still way back, when we were in our mother\u2019s bellies, what we were then, how we felt and still way back, when we were only genetic material in our mothers and fathers, throughout their whole lifetime and still way back, back, when they were genetic material in their own mothers and fathers and still way back back back along the chain, through all grand grand grand grand grand grand grandparents, to the moment when they were already not humans, but other kinds of beings, back, back, to amphibians, back, back, to the primal swamp, back, back, before planet Earth ever existed, when we were all just cosmic dust, just passive matter, in the very beginning, before all this came into being, but once the line between us and this moment is drawn, it starts to pull, pulling us out of the cosmic peace of life\u2019s antechamber and hurling us into a giddy flight in the reverse direction, through all these amphibians, primates, primeval beings, grandparents, parents, childhood, adolescence, life, along with all the genetic material, with all the collected information, with all this immensity, reaching this moment, now, in this theatre hall, where we sit and watch, and watch ourselves.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0Well, it\u2019s the same with performances.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0And I, as an actor, have to be able to feel and experience all this. The trick is everyone can be an actor if they wanted to. And everyone acts. And everyone feels. And it\u2019s what brings us together, here, now, isn\u2019t it? The shared feeling. And maybe, possibly, some necessity. Something we lack. What do we need?<\/p>\n

-\u00a0There is no present. The moment passes away in a blink of an eye, while the next moment is already coming. As I\u2019m saying this, it\u2019s already past and the future is yet to come. I reside in darkness. I\u2019m not present.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0Why aren\u2019t there any real dialogues in this performance, these are only monologues or just cues clipped and jumbled together?<\/p>\n

-\u00a0Because interaction is basically impossible. You say something with some intention, some thought, some images, but you\u2019re hearing something completely different on account of the experience, the mood, the associative chains in your mind.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0Well, yes, isn\u2019t that what\u2019s interesting about staging a dialogue, taking these discrepancies into account, the dynamics of who is leading and who is following, what unexpected twists could determine the course of events?<\/p>\n

-\u00a0Naaaah, all this is mystification.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0You mean to say a great deal of the theatre worldwide is just bla-bla-bla, is that it? This is quite stupid and arrogant. You not only want to evade judgement and misunderstanding, and be allowed to do your theatre as you please, but you proceed to explain what is possible and what isn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0No, I only meant this particular case, not generally\u2026<\/p>\n

-\u00a0Tarkovsky is a very good director, but his films are far too difficult to watch.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0What\u2019s so difficult about it?<\/p>\n

-\u00a0I don\u2019t know, I haven\u2019t seen them.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0What, what? The man tells about his childhood, about the past and the future, that\u2019s what his films are about. The rest is just some retrograde narrative about the spirit and some obvious metaphors. The memories, the memories are the good stuff!<\/p>\n

-\u00a0You shall not lay a finger on the genius!<\/p>\n

They are taken away.<\/em><\/p>\n

-\u00a0You will understand me.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0I will not understand you.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0I don\u2019t know how to watch your theatre! I don\u2019t understand it! What do you want to say?<\/p>\n

-\u00a0Well, just watch it, man.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0Is it that simple?<\/p>\n

-\u00a0It\u2019s that simple.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0Oh, hallelujah, I have been awakened!<\/p>\n

-\u00a0Heyyyyyy.<\/p>\n

-\u00a0You just reinvented the wheel.<\/p>\n

Why am I without a monologue? No lines either. Because I\u2019m asleep? But I\u2019m not asleep! \/takes out a gun\/ Everyone on the ground! Me lying all day, doing nothing, as if I have no other business to do. I\u2019m sick of you. I have a speech defect, they say. So what? I will not be given lines. Me lying in the corner of the stage! Spending eight hours a day with you. As if I have no other things to do. And what are you up to, anyway, you\u2019re up to nothing. Stop crying! The entire performance, you do nothing but cry! You\u2019re driving me crazy. Five books is all they\u2019ve read and they\u2019re all big shots. I can\u2019t stand it! I\u2019m going to snuff somebody! I\u2019m sick of you! Scumbags! I cannot go on like this.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

ACTORS<\/strong> CHOIR<\/strong> N<\/strong>2<\/strong><\/p>\n

We, the actors<\/p>\n

We are not the maldorors<\/p>\n

We crawl on the barn doors.<\/p>\n

We know the artistic conventions<\/p>\n

We know there is no art without pretensions<\/p>\n

We know every technique demands a counter-technique<\/p>\n

That every public demands a rubric<\/p>\n

That every media demands an even larger media<\/p>\n

Monstrous tragoedia, monstrous comoedia<\/p>\n

That is why we are so principled<\/p>\n

That is why we are so diligent<\/p>\n

That is why we aren\u2019t sleepy during rehearsals<\/p>\n

That is why we bruise our knees on concrete floors<\/p>\n

Shivering in frosty theatre halls<\/p>\n

Taking a piss in the yard because we\u2019re not granted a license to use the toilet<\/p>\n

Paying to work<\/p>\n

Bleeding in our beds<\/p>\n

Getting beaten at home<\/p>\n

Yelling<\/p>\n

Crying<\/p>\n

Abandoning us<\/p>\n

Taking away the children and the washing machines<\/p>\n

And telling us to go to hell<\/p>\n

Without even washing our undies<\/p>\n

Since our energy is sapped like a lemon squeezed dry<\/p>\n

Since we just lie anchored on the bed and stare blankly<\/p>\n

And not a pinch is left for them<\/p>\n

There is no flesh<\/p>\n

There is no spirit<\/p>\n

Just inert matter<\/p>\n

Scraped off the form<\/p>\n

And discarded wherever<\/p>\n

We are nothing but ballast<\/p>\n

We are still-born martyrs<\/p>\n

We are mechanic angels<\/p>\n

Angles of technique<\/p>\n

We, the actors<\/p>\n

We are not the maldorors<\/p>\n

We crawl on the barn doors.<\/p>\n

We have no will to do evil<\/p>\n

We are the actors<\/p>\n

We are the deserters of life<\/p>\n

We are the amateurs of the stage<\/p>\n

We are the voyeurs of the extreme states<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

A memory is a strange thing. It makes you be here and elsewhere at the same time. You\u2019re leaning on the staircase railing, watching the spider-web spun above the flaking yellow oil-paint in the corner and at the same time you\u2019re sitting on a bed in Vienna, the cotton fabric of the dress with white and grey vertical stripes keeping both warm and cool in the unbearable swelter, the shadows of the leaves on the tree branches are scattered all over your feet and this one afternoon some ten years ago.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

DIALOGUE OF BUFFALO BILL AND THE SUPERMARKET CHAIN BILLA <\/strong><\/p>\n

BILLA: Bill, your body is the body of a man. This is not some sleek metrosexual body with epilated chest and armpits and sexy body-built plastic body from the shop-window of a fancy shop or from the back cover of a lifestyle magazine. Your body is a mass, it has relief and this relief is the imprint of a dramatic, even monstrous story. Your body is disproportionate, it is a trunk, partly alive, partly dead. Where it is alive, its blood is like fire. Where it is dead, it corrodes like plutonium. Hairy inarticulate trunk, swarming with organs and tattooed with scars, covered with wounds \u2013 lethal wounds from arrows and gunshots, from a treacherous ambush, from a wet job, lethal wounds from the tusks of the boar and the hooves of the buffalo that stamped you down together with its enraged herd, stamped you down along with your favorite Bucephalus, your horse, who was your soul, you two, centaur of the prairies, covered with historical wounds, lethal historical wounds from Viking axes and poisoned arrows of savages, from crotch bites by colonial rebels, whose uprisings you ruthlessly quelled with napalm, from the cold steel you used to civilize the submissive canaille of the ghettos, lethal historical wounds from the incinerators where the corpses were industrially burnt, you, field marshal of death, a sovereign of life, who splits the meat into two piles, here the dead meat, here the living meat. You, Creator of life, you, monstrous brute, you, freakish fiend, you, formless organ, you, Bill, my husband, my lord, my God.<\/p>\n

BILL: My precious, my inspiration, you devour me as a fairy oven, as a candy house, as the vulva of a Luna Park, in which lights swirl, comets draw arcs in the sky, and the counters spin like a carousel accompanied by a frenzied barrel organ. You pour a waterfall of lights over me, lights that infiltrate into my leather armor and spill on my body like the electrified fingers of a Chinese masseuse.<\/p>\n

I penetrate deeper and deeper into you, hurdle after hurdle, adventure after adventure, hall after hall, here the ball begins. Formed in rows for a minuet, ladies and gentlemen with aluminum baskets in hand producing magic objects from them and spinning around the axis of the automated belts, taking bows before their wallets. The cashier lady plays vehement accords, wrings the instrument\u2019s soul through the cash-desk keyboard, the dancers, strained by the breath-taking speed, collapse in utter exhaustion, swoon for bliss, wallowing in limitless enjoyment, a pile of perfumed and stinky bodies of all ages, sexes and races, denominations, social and residential strata, parties and fractions and football clubs, everybody, the entire nation enraptured, a huge body in the temple, inspired, inseparable, powerful like an army and free as a band of children.<\/p>\n

Billa, my Billa, Muse of the new century, my inspiration, your yellow aluminum gown brings shivers to the deepest of my guts, the pulsating neon heart of your name, your spinning little basket spins my head around its axis, you are vertigo. My Billa, you are the dream of a better world, you are a memory from the future, the neo-platonic hierarchies of your counters construct a perfect harmony, before which even the sternest statesmen would freeze with reverential rapture. You are a microcosm reflecting the motions of the planet, the movements of the stars, in which the elemental forces take shelter and merge in archetypal concord. You are a better world. You are not a storehouse for products, but a vessel of pure spirit, every package on your counters breaths life, its soul grows on the skin in miraculous inorganic shapes, untouchable by decay, unreachable by the worm, protected by strict oversight, with controlled humidity and temperature maintained by snow-white refrigeration equipment, by synthetic antibiotics, by antiseptic detergents and preservatives, inorganic idyll, synthetic heaven, produced here on earth without violence, but with singing and rejoicing of fairies with white aprons and magicians with white collars and golden rim glasses\u2026<\/p>\n

My Billa, the deeper I penetrate into you, the more enthralling the inspiration, the more total the ecstasy, the more absolute the absolute emotion, the more stunning the thrill. Your shining synthetic surface, body without organs, flat luminous body with fairy reliefs fills me up to the darkest recesses of my panting limbs, to the blood blackened with suffering, to the bottom of the wrinkles that left on my face an imprint of the elemental forces of the wide world, the salt of the seas, the iodine of the oceans, the evil wind of the prairies, the semen of the buffalos, the coldblooded ultraviolet sun of the waterless desert.<\/p>\n

BILLA: Bill, Bill, when you penetrate into me, deeper and deeper, I feel you with all the aluminum cells of my luminous body, every product on my shelves absorbs your smell, reflects your heat, my metal construction whets into vibration, starts shimmering like translucent air, your masculine steps resound on my tiling like impending doom, they space out the disco rhythms of my sound systems, I lose my breath, the engines of my refrigeration installations hiccup with refrigerants. Your overcoat smells of ozone, of storm, of danger, you are soaked with the smell of dead leaves, of autumn forest, of gunpowder, stuffed into the black cracked fingers, of dead animals\u2019 fur and still pulsating bloody meat, of spoiled whiskey on the ginger moustache and congealed semen sprayed on the whores, you smell like a man, like a body, like life, like wild unbridled nature, like a meat supplier, like a truck that carries out the stinking waste from my hidden back storehouses, your reek fills me up as you penetrate me, my synthetics feels the thrill of life, my leader, leader of my loyal benign people, you, animator of consumption, you, immaculate producer, you, irreplaceable, my one and only shagger!<\/p>\n

Stick into me, stick those frozen beef rounds in, the scurfy frosty bloody cut of the round, stick into me those huge still living meats along with the crystallized stink of butchery, its humane electricity, with your rough, bloody, fair hands.<\/p>\n

BILL: You are driving me crazy. You are making me hot. I will do anything for you. I will give you all the dead meat. I will kill all the meat for you. I will bring you a millions trucks of buffalos. I will provide you with all the meat.<\/p>\n

BILLA: Give me the meat, give me the meat! I will wash away the blood, smear it with ointments and antibiotics, inject it with preservatives, cut and shape it, make it presentable, wrap it in synthetic packages, store it in vacuum and cans, render it foolproof, freeze it and massage its tissues, revive it for new life, the wonderful meat, the juicy meat, beautifully packed, sterilized in vacuum, diligently arranged or esthetically balanced on my refrigerator stalls, my plastic shelves and aluminum counters, the audience will crowd with enraptured eyes in front of the meat, in front of the pyramids of sausages and the salami pretzels, in front of the frankfurter garlands and the ham skyscrapers.<\/p>\n

BILL: I will jump into your meaty paradise, wallow along with your sausage angels inside your coolers until my mustache grows stiff with frost.<\/p>\n

BILLA: I will clutch you with my aluminum organs, so as to feel your bloody life. There is no difference between life and death in the synthetic paradise of Bill and Billa. No death and no life, just deepfreeze, just perfect products in a frozen synthetic paradise.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

YOUNG MAN: I love black. I always wear black. Not because I am in mourning for my life. It\u2019s because I anticipate death. She is my mistress. My mother, my sister. I have grown long hair and died it raven black. My bed is black, my sheets are black, my pillow is black, my floor is black, my window is black. My teeth are black. I even invented a black poem.<\/p>\n

BLACK POEM<\/strong><\/p>\n

Black black black<\/p>\n

Is the sky<\/p>\n

And inside my soul is black<\/p>\n

And inside my head is black<\/p>\n

And inside my bowels is black<\/p>\n

\u2026<\/p>\n

And inside my calves is black<\/p>\n

I messed it up<\/p>\n

I am starting all over again.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

BLACK POEM<\/strong><\/p>\n

Black black black<\/p>\n

Is the sky<\/p>\n

Black is inside my soul<\/p>\n

Black is inside my head<\/p>\n

Black is inside my bowels<\/p>\n

And inside my knees is black<\/p>\n

And inside my calves is black<\/p>\n

And inside my heels is black<\/p>\n

My lungs are black<\/p>\n

My liver is also black.<\/p>\n

My heart is black<\/p>\n

My brain is black<\/p>\n

My blood is black.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

And in your hair<\/p>\n

A black rose shall I lay.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not sure if \u2018lay\u2019 isn\u2019t too bourgeois. Maybe I\u2019ll change it. We\u2019ll see. Change it to \u2018stick\u2019, for example.<\/p>\n

I also love graveyards. My favorite is to fall asleep on the cool gravestone of a drowned harlot. In the morning I have back pains, but I do not show it. Besides, I love pain. It reminds me of death. Oh, death, death.<\/p>\n

In death I will find my beloved, oh, death.<\/p>\n

It is time to apply the breaks to my inspiration and to pause for a while on the wayside, as when one looks upon the vagina of a woman. It is good to look over the course already traveled, and then, the limbs rested, to rush on again with an impetuous bound. I propose to proclaim in a loud voice and without emotion the cold and grave chant that you are about to hear. Consider carefully what it contains and guard yourself against the painful impression it cannot fail to leave like a blight upon your troubled imaginings. Do not believe that I am on the point of death for I am not yet a skeleton and old age does not rest upon my brow. Look at me, standing before you, just like at a monster whose face you can see. Yet my face is not as horrifying as my soul.<\/p>\n

Not long ago I saw the sea once again and trod upon the bridges of ships; my memories of it are as lively as if it had all happened yesterday. O octopus of the silky glance! You whose soul is inseparable from mine; you, the most beautiful creature upon the terrestrial globe; you, chieftain of a seraglio of four hundred sucking-cups; you, in whom are nobly enthroned as though in their natural habitat, by a common agreement and with an indestructible bond, the divine graces and the sweet virtue of communication: why are you not with me, your belly of quicksilver pressed to my breast of aluminum, the two of us sitting here together upon a rock by the shore as we contemplate the spectacle I adore!<\/p>\n

You will not see me at my last hour surrounded with priests. I wish to die cradled upon the waves of the stormy sea or standing upon a mountain, with my eyes upwards. Let the wind carry me off over the world on the bones of his wings, some moments before my last agony, eager for my death. The eagle, the crow, the immortal pelican, the wild duck, the wandering crane, awakened shuddering with cold, will see me pass in the glare of lightning, a horrible and happy apparition. They will not understand what it means. On the ground, the snake, the great eye of the toad, the tiger, the elephant; in the sea, the whale, the shark, the hammer-fish, the shapeless ray, the tusked sea-lion, all will ask themselves what is this contradiction of the laws of nature? \u201cYes, I surpass you all in my inherent cruelty, cruelty the suppression of which does not depend upon myself. Is it for this reason that you prostrate yourselves before me thus? Or rather is it because you see me flying like a frightful comet \u2013 novel phenomenon \u2013 through blood-streaked space?\u201d A rain of blood is falling from my mighty body like the ebon cloud that heralds the hurricane. Listen to me, and do not blush, inexhaustible caricatures of the beautiful who take the laughable braying of your superlatively contemptible souls so seriously, and who do not understand why the Omnipotent, in a rare moment of excellent buffoonery which certainly does not violate the great general laws of the grotesque, took one day the wonderful pleasure to inhabit a planet with singular microscopic beings known as humans, made of stuff resembling ruddy corral: indeed you have good reason to blush, bones and fat. Human laws still pursued me with their vengeance, although I did not attack the race that I had abandoned so calmly. But my conscience made me no reproaches. During the day I fought with my new fellow creatures, and the earth was saturated with countless layers of clotted blood. I was the strongest and I bore away all the victories. Agonizing wounds covered my whole body but I pretended not to notice them. Earthly animals avoided me, and I remained alone in my resplendent grandeur.<\/p>\n

He is taken away.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0These are all snippets, why are you giving me snippets? Bits and pieces of old performances. And all this mystification. That we\u2019re actors on a stage and we\u2019re present as ourselves. I\u2019m not present as myself. The most relevant thing about me is not being Martin\u2019s nightmare. And it\u2019s not me who wrote this text. And that keeps repeating itself. I\u2019m stuck. Stuck within this phony text. This is violence! I\u2019m made to endure words I don\u2019t like or believe in. I work with people I don\u2019t like or believe in. Now, is this me saying this, huh? Ha! It can\u2019t be, it can\u2019t be just this. Dialogues, monologues, you build a fantasy world, you engage in illusory relations, you have props, scenery, costumes, characters, whatever \u2013 fragmented, integral, clever, stupid, modern, classic, whatever, here and now only, but I want it always and everywhere! I want more, I want the whole world. What is this? I\u2019m asking, what! This is violence. Did you see what they did to Martin just now, did you? He didn\u2019t want to. Not that I care for Martin. I\u2019m an actress. No, I didn\u2019t mean that. I\u2019m not a seagull either. I feel my brain disintegrating under the pressure of all this. All sorts of desires, everywhere around you. How do you respond to them, how do you satisfy them? And the impossible. The top limit of the impossible, hanging above me. You are capable, but only to a certain point. To where they leave you. From this point on follows the impossible. Not because I\u2019m not capable, but because they don\u2019t leave me. As they once said to an actress: \u2018You are a space-rocket to be exploited for ploughing the fields\u2019. I know I can tear the space asunder! But I want to plough the fields as well. I want, I want, I want. I will become the best actress. Because I can feel, I can feel life coursing through my veins. I can feel I\u2019m for real and there\u2019s no difference between make-believe and the real. This theatrical \u2018make-believe\u2019 is for real. I\u2019m really standing here, on this stage, I\u2019m speaking, I\u2019m seeing, the spotlights are casting their light into my eyes, I\u2019m feeling hot. Do you know how hard this is? Do you know the interesting female roles in the entire dramaturgy up to the twentieth century are but a few? Do you know most female roles in classical dramaturgy are those of beloved ones or mothers, that with only a few exceptions like Phaedra, Medea and Juliette there are no lead female roles, and the ones just mentioned only speak of love. Hamlet! The most significant role in the most significant play! Crap! Three Sisters too \u2013 it\u2019s a play about the sisters, yet the cues of more than three lines are granted to men only! Only the men speak! Who writes those texts? What am I to play! Do you know how hard it is to know you can do anything, but you\u2019re constricted by other people\u2019s desires? I can do anything! I\u2019m going to burst! I\u2019m going insane, it\u2019s giving me the fidgets. Not only Georgi can stay put for more than two minutes. I can\u2019t endure this slow tempo. Nothing happens. I have at least two more years to study. Maybe more. I want everything! I want it this instant. You\u2019re asleep. Asleep. Good morning! I\u2019m afraid. Not only Stefan is afraid. I\u2019m afraid too. I\u2019m afraid of bad luck. I\u2019m afraid events will somehow come right without me and I will not be standing on these stages like I want to, will not be saying the words I want to, will not be feeling around me the theatre I want to. Yet, I dare to. I dare stand before you. I am here. Now. And I am going to play. And no one can stop me. Now! Even the smallest role. Even the twig of the shrub. I will be breathing the same air as you, but I will always have one extra breath, my alveoli will expand with two millimeters more than yours, as I will be breathing this here air, which is thicker, heavier, more resilient than the one down there. I am a transmitter of desires. Desires flow through me. Mine, alien, reflected, written, uttered, seen. I feel them tickling my skin from the inside, ruffling my hair, embracing my shoulders, I am a network and the whole world flows through me for I am the best actress! Now!<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

ACTORS CHOIR N<\/strong>3 <\/strong><\/p>\n

We are the actors<\/p>\n

Ours is the underground kingdom<\/p>\n

Ours is the overground kingdom<\/p>\n

We have no kingdom<\/p>\n

We have no place<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

We are actors<\/p>\n

We take shadows out of the graves<\/p>\n

We chase ghosts through empty tunnels<\/p>\n

We are skewered together on the broach of destiny<\/p>\n

Every night the spotlight strips our bodies<\/p>\n

Flays the skin<\/p>\n

In the unbearable light of the footlights<\/p>\n

The masks melt\u00a0<\/p>\n

Here we are<\/p>\n

Out in the light<\/p>\n

Immortal skeletons<\/p>\n

Lead jaws<\/p>\n

Stone legends<\/p>\n

Conquistadors of the\u00a0afterworld<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

We cough blood<\/p>\n

We spit lungs<\/p>\n

We breathe up all of your air<\/p>\n

We\u00a0graft feeling organs on you<\/p>\n

We bathe you in our exhaustion<\/p>\n

We relieve you by our capitulation<\/p>\n

We capitulate suddenly<\/p>\n

We collapse\u00a0<\/p>\n

We are taken out on stretchers<\/p>\n

Amidst endless applause.<\/p>\n

We, immortal flexible skin<\/p>\n

We, urns of bones ground to dust.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

We, the actors<\/p>\n

New people are made of us<\/p>\n

New bodies<\/p>\n

New life<\/p>\n

New death<\/p>\n

We are formed<\/p>\n

We are crushed like dough<\/p>\n

Like Easter cakes<\/p>\n

Like shapeless boobs<\/p>\n

Like doughnuts<\/p>\n

We are kneaded, and kneaded<\/p>\n

We are well kneaded<\/p>\n

Our tops get squashed<\/p>\n

Or butts get slapped<\/p>\n

We are shaped<\/p>\n

We are given a shape<\/p>\n

We are\u00a0inspired with new spirit<\/p>\n

A new wick to melt the wax<\/p>\n

To burn the wax<\/p>\n

We are formed<\/p>\n

Like firewood<\/p>\n

Like coal<\/p>\n

Like fuel<\/p>\n

We burn on stage<\/p>\n

Indestructible flesh<\/p>\n

Pure energy<\/p>\n

Pure life<\/p>\n

Pure flame<\/p>\n

In the locomotive furnace chamber.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

We, the actors, are still-born<\/p>\n

We are born to be dead<\/p>\n

We are right out cut in halves<\/p>\n

We are totally zombified<\/p>\n

We are\u00a0influences<\/p>\n

We are baited<\/p>\n

We are put in extreme situations<\/p>\n

We are transformed<\/p>\n

We are formed<\/p>\n

We are then dumped at the dumping ground<\/p>\n

We are matter<\/p>\n

We are tabula rasa<\/p>\n

We are nothing because we could be\u00a0anything.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The wind will awaken the dead<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Get up, dead<\/p>\n

Get up in need:<\/p>\n

The need is so great<\/p>\n

It will elevate you<\/p>\n

It will crack the earth<\/p>\n

Until you crawl out from the cesspools of the underground depots<\/p>\n

Depots for the dead<\/p>\n

Corpse factories<\/p>\n

Tabula rasa<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The need is resurrection<\/p>\n

We need to reform the bodies<\/p>\n

To repair them one by one<\/p>\n

To redesign them\u00a0completely<\/p>\n

Remake them anew<\/p>\n

Because they are no good<\/p>\n

Not even for a crowd<\/p>\n

Not even for faceless\u00a0background characters<\/p>\n

Not even for a freak of nature<\/p>\n

Or inert mass<\/p>\n

To fill in the void<\/p>\n

Horror vacui.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The wind will awaken the dead<\/p>\n

Grated in the fields<\/p>\n

Scattered like concrete all over the slope<\/p>\n

The dead bodies<\/p>\n

Embittered cuddled\u00a0measured<\/p>\n

Without beginning and without end<\/p>\n

Smothered by\u00a0life<\/p>\n

Totally pummeled<\/p>\n

Sprouted like grass<\/p>\n

Like giant blue fungi<\/p>\n

Soaked<\/p>\n

Cut into two<\/p>\n

Into three<\/p>\n

Into five<\/p>\n

Into three hundred<\/p>\n

Dead parts<\/p>\n

Creep through the fields<\/p>\n

Creep through the woods<\/p>\n

Creep through the squares.<\/p>\n

Where does it end<\/p>\n

Where does it end<\/p>\n

Is the dead meat endless.<\/p>\n

I bit the tide in darkness<\/p>\n

Tide of flesh<\/p>\n

The flooding flesh choked\u00a0the nostrils<\/p>\n

The\u00a0throat<\/p>\n

Amidst the nocturnal conspiracy.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Awaken, dead<\/p>\n

Get up<\/p>\n

Before we\u00a0kick you<\/p>\n

Before we unearth you<\/p>\n

Enough hide-and-seek<\/p>\n

Enough freeloading<\/p>\n

The relentless\u00a0eye of the wind does not sleep \u2013<\/p>\n

It sees everything<\/p>\n

It sees through the dirt<\/p>\n

It sees through the worm tunnels<\/p>\n

It sees through the corroded eyeball \u2013<\/p>\n

It hollows you out<\/p>\n

It\u00a0perforates you like eardrum<\/p>\n

No place<\/p>\n

No place to hide<\/p>\n

No secure shelter<\/p>\n

No last refuge<\/p>\n

No eternal peace<\/p>\n

Get up now!<\/p>\n

Go out in a row<\/p>\n

You are the dead<\/p>\n

You are the actors<\/p>\n

You are the bodies<\/p>\n

We will create you.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

SCENE: COSMOS<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

THE END<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A PLAY ABOUT US \u00a0A play about us\u00a0was produced by Metheor premiered in 2018. \u00a0 A PLAY ABOUT US \u00a0 The atom is 99.99% void. If the atom is the size of planet Earth, the proton is as big as a football field. The rest is void. An entire hollow planet. Void, void, void. Atoms … A PLAY ABOUT US<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[231,232,46,48,44,77,45],"class_list":["post-124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-plays","tag-acting","tag-actor","tag-ani-vaseva","tag-leonid-yovchev","tag-metheor","tag-play","tag-theater"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t