LAZARITSA

LAZARITSA by Yordan Radichkov

Director: Boyan Ivanov Scenography: Svila Velichkova Music: Asen Avramov Animation: Boris Valkov Video mapping: Todor Todorov

Cast: Milen Dimitrov

Radichkov’s Lazaritsa takes us into a world that resembles our own, yet is never quite the same. At its center stands Lazar — a man who thinks he has seen it all, but still has not quite understood what has happened to him. Everything feels like a game between the comic and the tragic, a game in which the rules keep shifting as it unfolds, without asking too much what is what.

The situations tangle like yarn in a cat’s paws, slightly absurdly; the conversations veer off in unexpected directions, and laughter appears exactly where you least expect it. Beneath the surface, though, something keeps poking and unsettling, never letting go.

In this performance, even the sounds are born before the audience’s eyes and ears. The noise of footsteps, the animals, the storm — everything happens here and now, as part of the game, as if the world itself were being assembled anew onstage.

Lazaritsa is like a conversation by the fire that begins as a joke, but gradually draws you into listening more closely. And just when you think you have understood everything, it turns out you may only just be beginning. And as is often the case with Radichkov, the more you watch, the less certain you become about what is truth and what is merely an amusing story. Or perhaps that is exactly what makes it so interesting.