Busy Mezca

dramaturgy and direction: Teodora Popova

set design and puppets: Diana Uzunova

original music: Gergana Vasileva

starring actors: Mima Dapkova, Nedyalko Nedelchev, Elena Keshisheva

The puppet performance "Busy Mezca" was created with great love for our little audience.

At the heart of the story lies the hunger of the little bears and the care for them, which is Mezca’s main duty. Besides being a mother and homemaker, Mezca is also a good friend who finds it hard to refuse help. On her way to her neighbor — the Fox — she ends up in a number of situations where it is difficult, almost impossible, for her to decline assistance. Thus Mezca transforms from a comic figure — a woman who has forgotten the pot on the stove — into a hero worthy of respect. In fact, she becomes a victim of her own kindness and her desire to help everyone.

Or, put another way, on one side of the conflict stand her duties as a mother and homemaker, and on the other — the expectations of others toward her, her obligations as a friend and as a member of the “forest society.”

In this way, the performance aims to show how difficult the life of modern mothers truly is, with how many commitments they must cope with at once, and how every one of their actions is in fact a choice between their role as a mother and the role they play in society.

Messages

There are essentially two messages.

First message

The first is directed at children. At the end of the material, the narrators address them with a request to try, even in a small way, to help their mothers. Or, if they cannot — then at least to thank them for the care and time they devote to them.

This also applies to part of the adult audience — fathers, grandmothers, and grandfathers, who do know, yet sometimes seem to forget how difficult the “full-time profession of being a mother” is, and unconsciously demand more from them than they can give.

Second message

The second message is addressed directly to mothers. Here I have allowed myself to add another new character — the Moon. In the original text, she is presented by the author as a witness to what is happening, but I took the liberty of turning her into an active character.

It is she, as the more experienced, wiser sister, who will comfort the crying Mezca at the end of the material, sharing with her what she herself has understood — that one person, within a single day, cannot be everywhere and manage everything. And this should not be a reason for tears, self-blame, or guilt.

Simply put, although it is difficult, every young woman who becomes a mother must learn to prioritize, dividing things into primary, secondary, and insignificant, regardless of others’ expectations of her.

_for children_