Acerca de
In 2022, theater director Vasilena Radeva will stage the play
Marguerite Jursenar - "Electra or the removal of masks". Along with his
company Panic Button Theater Vasilena creates a long and profound
a preliminary process that precedes the rehearsal and branches off between
theoretical and practical training.
This solid initial work actually consists of two creative studios and one
theoretical seminar aimed at a wider audience, not just
participants in practical workshops. Host of the first workshop held
in 2021 it was the German-Belgian director Rafael Cohn.
The second part of the project is the seminar and discussion dedicated to the image of Electra
and contemporary reflection on ancient drama.
"Electra or the removal of masks" is the thematic starting point of the seminar
"The modern actor in the ancient hero." It will take place on March 5 from 11:00 to
16:00 at the French Institute in Bulgaria. Three people will take part in it
University lecturers from Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski ”: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Kamelia
Spasova (Department of Theory of Literature at the Faculty of Slavic Studies
of Philology), Dr. Slava Yanakieva, specialty Culturology, Philosophical
Faculty) and Assoc. Prof. Dr. Petar Goranov, Department of Logic, Ethics and Aesthetics,
Faculty of Philosophy).
Marguerite Jursenar is one of the most important French-language authors of the 20th century. Born
in Brussels, she traveled to Europe, Asia and Africa and settled in the United States. Since 1947
she became an American citizen and spent the rest of her life in America. Through
In 1980, she became the first woman admitted to the French Academy.
The seminar "The Modern Actor in the Ancient Hero" will present a variety
reception on her work.
The final stage of the project will be the acting workshop of Vasilena Radeva,
which will naturally pass in the rehearsal process of "Electra or download
of the masks ", whose premiere is expected by the end of the year.
SEMINAR PROGRAM
11:00 | Start of the seminar
11:10 | The ancient hero (and heroism) in the scope of the modern
actor (and artistry)
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Petar Goranov
Attempt through the phenomenon of play and gaming to register something that is known
freedom we will call the "coefficient of emotional permanence". This can be
traced in almost every narrative, in this case - the ancient tragedy with
her favorite conceptual / current bouquet of: retribution and revenge, guilt and punishment,
fear and apprehension, blood and salvation.
Short operational definition of 'modernity': mastering the current time with
view of the eternity at hand, which is at arm's length from the core of
the so-called "Human nature". Despite the quotes we think consistent
the emotional (and therefore conceptual) fabric of this nature is taken over
"Forever" from the dominant negative version of the world, which if nothing else
helps heroism to die periodically - always deservedly, and sometimes beautifully.
Here we take Nietzsche 's concept of ressentiment as its starting point (in its entire spectrum: from
meek timidity, through "smart" suspicion to vile revenge),
which, according to him, lies in the modern reflex of hatred. What prevents us from
we slide Aristotle's "compassion of fear" to the shores of the present with
the more modern formula of "hatred of fear"? Almost nothing.
One positive, though. For antiquity we are sure that it has existed since
we are not at all convinced that the time of our presence there has expired. Because
the great, exorbitant effort of every game (the children's rummaging in the sand,
thinking about playing chess, erotic games of Lady / Sir, professional
playing Theater) is to make time reversible without repeating everything from scratch
"especially the seriousness with which the game of War pursues its victims."
actors - people). Man, to paraphrase Plato, deserves respect
attitude only when taken seriously as a toy in the hands of a god. No
everything, of course, pours from heaven, but the gifts come from there.
12:10 | Rest
12:25 | Electra's faces
Dr. Slava Yanakieva
Electra is multifaceted. She has her masks. All masks - from the pre-Aeschylus
unarticulated mythological notions to Jursenar's modern drama. Electricians
of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides put only the poetically ordered beginning of one
tradition, which in different epochs is resolved in the actuality every time on
new. Theatergoers face a complex task: how to be able to at the same time
choose from the many updates to this image and how to interpret it
chosen by them. How to find fresh still undiscovered meanings and what theatrical
paradigm to accommodate them. Because - on the one hand the ritual nature of the ancient
theater has ended its life once and for all - as it knows it
premodernity. But on the other hand - in Jursenar's drama she opens a new one
space and looking for new funds. The modernity of her dramaturgy in
paradoxically makes a U-turn and points to those ritual grounds, but
looks at them through the optics of the modern experience of presentability.
Jursenar's modern Electra shares territory with those of Gerhart Hauptmann,
Eugene O'Neill, Jean Giroud, Jean-Paul Sartre, Laszlo Durco and Miklos Jancho,
of Theo Angelopoulos and Jacques Rivet.
13:25 | Rest
14:00 | Electra Quartet: Jursenar and Euripides; Hamlet and Orestes
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Kamelia Spasova
M. Jursenar knows in detail the incarnations of Electra in time - hers
image bears retribution at Aeschylus, justice at Sophocles, irrational
revenge on Euripides. The author turns to the drama of the Atreides (father-
victim, child accomplices in a plan of revenge, maternal murder) to put on
the scene is a contemporary question, familiar to us from the play of Euripides: "Yes
we study things: is hatred justified, should we rightly hate, and if not, why is it
she? ” To answer, Jursenar superimposes the images of the ancient Orestes and the modern
Hamlet, studying in his play a special quartet of men around Electra:
these are the ties of blood (Orestes), complicity (Pilate), hatred (Aegisthus) and
law (Theodore). In her "Electra, or the removal of the masks" she includes her own
predecessors to rewind their bets, but also to show the possibility of
purification through emptiness. In all incarnations, Jursenar's Electra
demonstrates the perseverance to stay yourself.
15:00 | Rest
15:10 | Discussion
Vasilena Radeva, Kamelia Spasova, Slava Yanakieva, Petar Goranov
The project is implemented with the support of the National Culture Fund and Sofia Municipality, in partnership with the French Institute in Bulgaria.