MOTHER-IN-LAW | Portfolio

MOTHER - IN - LAW

THEATRICAL PRODUCTION

SATIRIC GROTESQUE AFTER THE COMEDY MOTHER-IN-LAW BY ANTON STRASHIMIROV

BULGARIAN CLASSICS

ADRIANA BUDEVSKA DRAMA THEATER / BURGAS/

SEASON 2019 / 2020

PLAYWRIGHT: ANTON STRASHIMIROV

PRODUCTION TEAM:

STAGING / ORIGINAL MUSIC: BOYKO BOGDANOV

SET / COSTUME DESIGN: TSVETA BOGDANOVA

CAST: ACTORS OF ADRIANA BUDEVSKA COMPANY

SOUND RECORDING: #STUDIO-BURGAS

VOCALS AND 7 NATIVE DRUMS LIVE ON STAGE: THE ACTORS OF THE COMPANY

PHOTOS : ROSSITSA MITEVA/IGNAT DYAVOLOV/LINA GLAVINOVA

POSTER: STOYKO SAKALIEV

MOTHER - IN - LAW [SVEKARVA] is one of the most played comedies on Bulgarian scene. The play was written in Geneva in 1906, especially for the opening of the first Bulgarian stage - IVAN VAZOV National Theatre - the earliest and still the most authoritative of all Bulgarian stages.

The plot satirizes the typical Balkan manners in one traditional Bulgarian household > relations between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, mother and son, spouses, feuding or related families.

Along with the infirmity in the Bulgarian family conventions, such as ignorance, gossip, matchmaking, Strashimirov highlights the eternal conflict between the different generations. The author situates the action at the beginning of the 20th century. Time when the conservatism of patriarchal morality is in a tragicomic clash with the new urban lifestyle. Modern Western European ideas and fashion trends from this historical period have enormous influence on local people, leading big changes and at the same time challenging sometimes

ridiculous collision of different cultures.

PHOTOS ▲ © ROSITSA MITEVA / PERSONAL ARCHIVE

Anton Strashimirov [1872 -1937] , known for his critical pen and called the Restless spirit of Bulgarian Modernism, is a rich and distinguished figure in Bulgarian history. There are many definitions of him: fiction writer, playwright, publicist, publisher, literary critic, schoolteacher, ethnographer, soldier in Yane Sandanski's detachment, Balkan War ranker, WWI and WWII correspondent, anti-monarchist, anti-fascist, co-creator of the Committee for the Protection of the Jews ...

Strashimirov is born in Varna, attended lectures in geography, philosophy and literature in Bern, died in Vienna.

Author of many plays, some symbolistic, other with domestic content, he gives significant contribution to the history of Bulgarian drama.

He is the author of folklore studies collected in

"OUR PEOPLE", "THE BOOK OF BULGARIANS" (1918), where he examines in detail Bulgarian ethnic and ethnographic groups.

In his quest to create modern drama, Strashimirov borrows themes, ideas, motives from Meterlink, Ibsen, Nietzsche, or Stanislav Psbishevski.

His works have been translated into Polish, Russian, Serbian, Hungarian, Czech and other languages.