10th Annual Black Box International Theatre and Dance Festival 2016

June 3 (Friday), 9 pm. at Chamber Hall – Plovdiv Drama Theatre

The Samsas – Theatre Laboratory “Sfumato” – Bulgaria

Union of Bulgarian Actors’ 2016 IKAR awards for puppet theatre and for best individual achievement in puppetry (Petya Karadzhova).
“The Samsas” is a performance that makes an unusual reading of Kafka by using the rich expressiveness of puppet theatre. An inventive and creative combination of puppets, masks, acting and object theatre, it is inspired by the writer’s diaries and his renowned novella “Metamorphosis”. In it the common clerk Gregor Samsa undergoes an odd metamorphosis from human into an insect. At first glance, his family is a remote observer of the change but it is deeply related to Gregor’s fate and is one of the reasons for his transformation. The performance creates an absurdist picture of rejection, overwhelming loneliness and personality crisis. A world built of the stuff the dreams are made of. A puppet performance for adults that does not aim at escapism, but offers awareness through the motive of the scapegoat.

Based on texts by F. Kafka
Adapted for stage and directed by Katya Petrova
Set Design and Puppets Petya Karadzhova
Music by Hristo Yotsov
Cast Angel Kalev, Anna-Valeria Bostanyan, Velislava Marinkova, Dayana Dimitrova, Ivan Shumarov, Izabela Ivanova, Lyubomir Zhelev, Radoslava Nedelcheva

The 10th annual Black Box International Theatre and Dance Festival will be held from May 31 to June 6, 2016, in Plovdiv. The seven-day festival features international and Bulgarian works in the fields of theatre and contemporary dance. The festival's partners are the Bulgarian Ministry of Culture, Municipality of Plovdiv, Embassy of Israel, U.S. Embassy, Embassy of Belgium, Austrian Embassy, Italian Cultural Institute, Cervantes Institute Sofia, Boris Hristov Cultural Centre, Plovdiv Drama Theatre, Ivan Vazov Language High School and Plovdiv 2019 Foundation.