The Package

Authors: Two Seagulls (Iva Petroni and Boil Banov)

Director: Boil Banov

Set Designer: Yuliyana Voykova–Nayman

Music: Martin Karov

Cast: Zornitsa Konstantinova, Nevena Tsaneva, Evgeni Budinov, Stoyan Pamukov, Tihomir Blagoev, Dimitrina Teneva, Hristo Mutafchiev

“Everyone from Europe is ready to wash dishes in America, just to be free, and you want to go from America to Europe to wash dishes so you can be free. I don’t understand you!”

This line from the play The Package clearly establishes the theme of the false American dream—a dream wrapped in cellophane, instilled consistently and uncritically, generation after generation. A sugar-coated idea of material prosperity that has become the emblem of the good life. Happiness is attainable, as long as it is paid for.

You’re on welfare—you can eat hamburgers freely. You wash dishes—you can eat even more hamburgers freely. You drive a truck—you can eat hamburgers with absolute freedom. Freedom in America is guaranteed! And, of course, anyone who lives in America is a big deal! Such a big deal that they don’t need to know what happens beyond the promised continent. They don’t need to know that other countries exist, let alone where they are. They don’t need to think.

And if, after all, an American citizen is forced to think, complete confusion ensues. Because the person who has been fed has forgotten how to think, having grown accustomed merely to getting by. Witness the endlessly funny and absurd confusions of a classic American family faced with an unusual choice. So unusual that they are even forced to find out where the country of Bulgaria is located and how many centuries old it is.

Boil Banov