Bitola Shakespeare Festival 2019

Macedonian | English

Imagine the world and humanity came to an end, all our civilization, as we know it today, it’s supposed that it could be rebuilt and reconstructed solely based on the works of William Shakespeare.

No one has ever managed to outshine his genius, talent and vision.

This year, on the Bitola Shakespeare Festival we’ve “dealt with” a particularly interesting programme. The six plays on the main programme of the festival offer a fusion of disciplines and theatrical expressions, such as modern dramaturgy, dance, performances and powerful aesthetic stage visualization.

Inspired by the genius, the authors offer us another Shakespeare, one that is chewed, recycled, one that is commented on, rewritten, copied…

Come to see theatre, to asses, to talk, to argue, to be amazed…In the end, truth will out… As long as our eyes glow…

Ilina Chorevska
Ivan Jerchikj

THE TAMING OF THE SHREW

Director: Ivan Plazibat
Translation: Milan Bogdanovikj
Dramaturge and text adaptation: Mila Pavikjevikj
Scenography: Ozren Bakotikj
Costume design: Ana Marin
Composer: Damir Shimunovikj
Stage movements: Damir Klemenikj
Lighting design: Srgjan Barbarikj
Sound design: Marko Mandikj
Stage manager: Frane Smoljo
Cast:

Baptista Minola – Filip Radosh
Katherine – Katarina Romac
Petrichio – Goran Markovikj
Grumio – Marjan Nejashmikj Banikj
Bianca – Ana Marija Veselchikj
Gremio – Nenad Srdelikj
Curtis – Pere Eranovikj
Lucentio – Stipe Radoja
Tranio – Niksha Archanin
Biondello, Servant – Luka Cherjan
Vincentio – Vicko Bilandzikj

Duration: 2 h and 30 minutes, one intermission

 

LADY MACBETH

Concept & choreography: Walter Matteini and Ina Broeckx
Costume design: Ina Broeckx
Stage design: Ina Broeckx
Lighting design: Bruno Ciulli
Music: Ezio Bosso, Antonio Vivaldi, Max Richter, Philip Glass, J.S. Bach, Alessandro Scarlatti

Cast:

Lady Macbeth – Ina Broeckx
Macbeth – Sigurd Kirkerud Roness
Banquo – Daniel Flores Pardo
Witch 1 – Sara Nicastro
Witch 2 – Tiziano Pilloni
Witch 3 – Laura Perrot

Duration: 65 min. NO Intermission

Lady Macbeth is inspired by Shakespeare’s timeless tragedy. The performance focuses on the devastating and bleak love story between Macbeth and his wife. Their passion, ambition and relentless pursuit of power causes them to fall victim to their own intrigues. Shakespeare has infused this drama with timeless and universal sentiments, which is why our story is set in an unspecified period of time and place. It starts off where Shakespeare’s version ends: the Macbeths are dead. Freed from their earthly torments, they are however condemned to endlessly relive the darkest period of their past – a punishment inflicted upon them and which they in turn inflict on each other. They blame one another, seeing the other as the real culprit. Thoughts take shape, the characters come to life and relive the dramatic events of which they were once the protagonists. But like memories, these events change over time. What is more: their nightmare is interspersed with moments of love and tenderness. Lady Macbeth is a drama about life and death, and about the ambiguous relationships between people, taking the audience on a journey to discover the complexities of the human psyche.

HAMLET

Concept and choreography: Walter Matteini and Ina Broeckx
Costumes: Weber+Weber Sartoria
Stage design: Ina Broeckx
Lighting design: Bruno Ciulli
Music: Ezio Bosso, Antonio Vivaldi, Max Richter, Philip Glass

 

Cast

Ina Broeckx – Gertrude
Laura Perrot – Heroine
Sara Nicastro – Ophelia
Daniel Flores Pardo – Hamlet
Sigurd Kirkerud Roness – King
Tiziano Pilloni – Laerte

Hamlet Duration: 70 min. NO Intermission

 

Our heroine, a mentally unstable young woman, identifies herself with her namesake, Shakespeare’s Ophelia. Reading is her only lifeline – when she reads she finds peace and serenity. Reading Hamlet, she tries to understand what happened to her. Words take shape, characters come alive and through the story told by Shakespeare, Ophelia relives the dramatic events of her own life. Hamlet is a drama about life and death, and about the ambiguous relationships between people, offering the audience a journey through the darkest alleys of the human soul.

JULIET AND OPHELIA, LIFE-LONG SUICIDES

Author: Julio Rojas
Director: Aarón Lobato
Assistant director: Pablo Martínez Bravo
Dramaturgy consulting: María Velasco and Santiago Giralt
Choreography and movement: Chevi Muraday
Costume design and photos: Felype de Lima
Lighting Design: Diego Domínguez
Poster and Flyer Photo: Alberto Campa and Carlos Rubio Recio

 

 

Cast:

Juliet – Julio Rojas
Ophelia – Aarón Lobato
Voice-over – Ana Wagener

Duration: 70 minutes

 

 

The masculine and the feminine. Good and Evil. Up and down. Life, death Theater or television? The spiritual and the flesh. Eros, Thanatos. It seems that the perception of the universe -at least in Western society- can not detach itself from dualism, from the choice or obligation to choose one or the other. ‘Nulla ethica sine aesthetica’. This Juliet and this Ophelia that we present, may be neither man nor woman, neither victims nor heroines, and their time and space is no longer determined by the line (like ours), and by the antagonistic, the dual. Is every entity, idea or situation binary in itself? And what happens or how is it named what is detached and is no longer identified in that classification?

Ophelia and Juliet have committed suicide on stage more than a million times. Our heroines awake in a limbo, where they share the details of their dishonor. Time and space have been suspended: they return to talk with their loved ones and their unloved ones, comment on the news as two seasoned celebrities, immerse themselves in traumas and unrealized memories, and question their status as women, victims or survivors of their own history. As women who have survived more than four hundred years of suicide, as suicides who love life too much, as suicidal suicide victims, they never die.

“ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD” by Tom Stoppard

Director: Tapasztó Ernő
Dramaturge: Nótáros Lajos, Fekete Réka, Tapasztó Ernő
Scenography: Albert Alpár
Costume design: Janó Papp
Music: The Tiger Lillies
Lighting design: Ioan Horga
Assistant director: Fekete Réka, Norbert Dina

 

 

 

Cast:

Rosencrantz – Tege Antal
Guildenstern – Gulyás Attila
Tragedian – Tapasztó Ernő
Hamlet – Lung László Zsolt
Ophelia – Alexandra Gîtlan
Claudius – Sándor Köleséri
Gertrud – Éder Enikő
Polonius, Tragedian – Zoltan Lovas
Tragedian – Iulia Pop

 

“KING UBU” by Alfred Jarry

Director and text adaptation: Vasil Hristov
Scenography: Todor Daevski and Vasil Hristov
Costume design: Roze Trajchevska Ristovska
Lighting design: Dzvezdan Miljkovikj
Video and photography: Dushan Kardalevski
Poster design: Denko Matevski
Stage manager: Zharko Namichev
Prompter: Danica Ilieva
Cast:

 

Papa Ubu – Igor Angelov
Mama Ubu –  Biljana Dragikjevikj Projkovska
Bordure –  Zoran Ljutkov
Boggerlas – Sanja Arsovska
Ophelia – Filip Trajkovikj
The Queen – Sofija Kunovska
The King – Predrag Pavlovski
Boleslas – Jana Stojanovska / Natalija Teodosieva
Ladislas – Dolores Popovikj
I Witch – Katerina Shehtanska Lakovski
II Witch – Maja Veljkovikj Panovska
III Witch – Emilija Micevska
The People – Tamara Ristovska
The Narrator – Igor Georgiev

 

The French author Alfred Jarry was the forerunner of the Surrealism in the theatre as well as the precursor of the Theatre of Absurd. His best known play King Ubu is considered to be the first modern play in the theatrical avant-garde tradition that immediately drew the attention of the audience towards the artificiality of theatrical conventions.

This text is among the first three stylized burlesques where Jarry mocks and addresses the anomalies of the modern society. The protagonist Papa Ubu through the structure of grotesque parody of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, shows the coward King Ubu, the symbol of the bourgeois class, as someone who is ruthless and unscrupulous led by the motto “the end justifies the means”. This central character, known for his absurdly infantile perspective on the world and insatiable greed is presented by the author as a representative of the modern man. Thus, King Ubu is a metaphor of the modern man, who is ugly, vulgar, greedy, grandiose, insincere, dimwitted, immature, evil and coward. At the same time, the author emphasizes and differentiates the greed and the lust for power – the syndrome of the modern world.

Today, 122 years after the first performance of King Ubu, we still linger on it and stage it due to its originality and provocation. Jarry’s vulgar grotesque is interpreted as director-actor’s distance and comment on the non-values of the modern man. King Ubu is a source of countless theoretical and practical researches that inspires entire ideas in creating the theatrical aesthetics of the 20th century.

 

Vasil Hristov, director