Between Life And Death: A Festival’s Journey Through Tragedy [Part I]

We each owe a Death

Johannes von Tepl, Death and the Ploughman [ Der Ackermann und der Tod, 1401 ]

One festival I regularly attend and truly enjoy is the Varna Summer International Theatre Festival, held during the first two weeks of June.

Varna is a city of nearly 400,000 inhabitants located on the coast of the Black Sea. It is a key tourist destination in the region and serves as the seat of the Bulgarian Navy and the country’s maritime trade. Since 1992, this seaside city has hosted Bulgaria’s premier theatre festival, directed by Nikolay Iordanov in collaboration with Kamelia Nikolova, both professors of theatre studies at Sofia University. Although it may not regularly make headlines in international arts columns, it remains a festival of quality and significant cultural weight, particularly in its presentation of contemporary Bulgarian theatre through its showcase program.

Over the years, I have had the opportunity to witness numerous remarkable performances at this festival, directed by prominent figures such as Jernej Lorenci, Viktor Bodó, Chevi Muraday, Anne Nguye, Rabih Mroué, Romeo Castellucci, Gábor Tompa, and Silviu Purcărete, among others.

As in previous editions, this year’s 33rd festival, from June 1 to June 11, 2025, maintained a dual structure: (a) a showcase of representative works from Bulgarian theatre, and (b) an international program. The overarching thematic axis shaping most of the program was “The Tragic in Contemporary Theatre,” a timely and resonant theme reflecting the tumultuous state of the world today. As part of this focus, a roundtable was organized in which I participated alongside colleagues from the United States, Bulgaria, South Korea, and other countries.

In my presentation, titled “The Biopolitics of Contemporary Tragedy,” I spoke about tragedy as a vast archive of wars, traumas, conflicts, apocalyptic narratives, and experiences, an “album” of protagonists and antagonists positioned at the limits of things: at the edges of what is acceptable, at the boundaries of the city, of law, of morality. In this sense, I argued, their terrible and impious sufferings and passions concern precisely these limits, but at the same time, they also involve their questioning and transgression (see Antigone, Medea, Clytemnestra, Oedipus, Philoktetes, Orestes, and others). By continually testing these biopolitical limits, tragedy seeks to mark what it means to be human and to explore what constitutes an alternative life, a just life, a life worthy of mourning.

The poster of this year’s Festival edition.

The questions posed are the same questions we face today. Much has changed but the essence remains; hence, the popularity of tragedy has endured among artists of all backgrounds and identities. As the crisis of culture deepens, so, too, does the visibility of the tragic dimension of both individuals and civilizations. As Susan Sontag aptly observed, we live in an era in which tragedy is no longer merely a form of art but also a form of history. The central issues which underlie tragedy are best understood as a set of problems to be raised: Who asks the question?  What dangers await the one who dares to ask?  What are the responsibilities of the one who raises the question?

These questions collectively represent the true challenge to human communities across time.

Within this framework of tragedy, the curatorial choices of this year’s festival were situated, some more effective in their staging, others less so. Yet in every instance, each production conveyed its own anxieties about the tragic condition of humanity and the planet.

An Explosive Yet Tragic Mother

Among the performances that stood out to me was Mother Courage by Bertolt Brecht, written in 1939, based on The Runagate Courage (1669), part of the novel Simplicius Simplicissimus by Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen.

The production was staged by the Satirical Theatre of Sofia, directed by the renowned Bulgarian director Stoyan Radev, who, I should note, had just a few days earlier presented another of his stagings, Hamlet, a production by the Bulgarian Army Theatre.

Albena Pavlova as Mother Courage. Photo: Peter Petrov. Courtesy of Varna Festival.

The ongoing popularity of Brecht’s works on the modern stage shows that they still resonate, communicate and move audiences, though this does not mean they haven’t been negatively impacted by the passage of time. No work escapes unscathed from the passage of years, not even a masterpiece like Mother Courage, which many scholars consider the greatest anti-war drama of the 20th century. Time reshapes or erases everything, depending on the prevailing spirit and needs of each era (Zeitgeist).

Today’s world is far more complex, opaque and fragmented than the one Brecht grappled with, an era rife with tensions and contradictions, yes, but one with a clearer, more readable political and social backdrop. Hence, the Marxist tools of analysis and deconstruction, grounded in the logic of binary oppositions and absolute truths, were widely used at the time. In the present era, however, strict binarity has lost its explanatory power, as the logic of black and white and absolute truths has given way to more nuanced and undefined categories and realities. As Heiner Müller once said, Brecht was great, but anyone working with him today must go beyond him in order for the work to remain relevant.

That said, I am not arguing that the precious core of Brecht’s works, especially one like this, has been lost. On the contrary, it is still there, provided one examines it with patience and care and retools it in light of today’s concerns, in a world where the constant televised broadcast of warfare has stripped war, both as a concept and a reality, of the terror it inherently carries. War has become something familiar, daily, just another spectacle for marketing and mass consumption, both from the left and the right of the ideological spectrum.

Thus, Radev took this epic tale of the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648) and, without succumbing to gimmicks or verbosity, without melodramatic outbursts or didactic crescendos, without manipulation or the desire to shock, and without seeking rupture, staged a direct, extroverted, accessible, and vivid production, skillfully embracing Brecht’s philosophy of Verfremdung (alienation). At no point did he strive for realism. He kept the mechanisms of theatrical construction visible, used choral interludes as narrative bridges that break the action, offering both breathing space and moments for reflection. He maintained a deliberate looseness in how actors related to their roles, allowing Brecht’s famed performative Gestus to emerge as originally envisioned, so that the production’s core themes of profiteering, the psychic cost of war, lost humanity, the struggle for survival at any cost, and the commodification of violence, could be seen clearly and communicated effectively.

At the heart of the cast, literally ablaze with passion, and a fair share of madness, along with confidence, was the talented and comedically gifted Albena Pavlova, who delivered an Anna Fierling, known as Mother Courage, that was anti-heroic, passionate, earthy, dynamic, greedy, cunning, at times brutish, foul-mouthed, hard, practical, opportunistic, always battle-ready, and, above all, a Mother who never loses her humor, even in the face of her own and others’ tragedies. Irony, mockery, and sarcasm are part of her survival kit during her odyssey through the combat zone. As a mother of three children, both victim and perpetrator of the era’s biopolitics, both ruler and ruled, she sees the world as it is and how it works, from within and without, gains knowledge, but unlike a classic tragic hero, she does not change, self-reflect, or repent, much less get punished. On the contrary, she becomes more stubborn, arrogant, and determined. Not even the deaths of her children frighten her. Always present within the tragic events, Pavlova’s Mother radiates searing energy to those around her, and to the audience. She deservedly received the Icarus National Theatre Award 2025 for Best Female Performance.

Also remarkable was the performance of Nikol Georgieva. In general, the entire cast moved to the rhythms of a defiant Mother heading blindly into the unknown. Exceptionally effective and layered was the musical underscore by Milen Kukosharov, which supported the twelve-member cast dressed in the costume designs of Svila Velichkova.

The enormous metallic wheel conceived by Nikolay Toromanov served not only as Mother Courage’s cart but could also be seen as the wheel of harsh capitalism rolling over everything in its path, profiting from war. One might also interpret it as a symbol of fate turning; after all, Mother Courage is a gambler, possibly representing the wheel of time and history, and history also turns. Here, on the main stage of the National Theatre of Varna, history (re)turns with a vengeance, this time as farce, validating the director’s choices and scenographic concept.

Mother Courage before the wheel of her “fortune.” Photo: Peter Petrov. Courtesy of the Varna Festival.

Can the world truly change? That is the question which Brecht posed to his audience back then, and today’s viewer must answer the same question. Wisely, the director leaves it to the audience to ponder and, more importantly, to consider their role in the writing of history.  They are not free of responsibility; Mother Courage might very well be the mother of us all. She stands on stage for our sake; she is our representative. After all, war and exploitation are not God’s but mankind’s curse, and it is mankind who goes to the theatre: they are the audience.

Death and the Ploughman: We All Owe a Death

Immediately afterward, I witnessed for the second time, the first being at the National Theatre of Iași in Romania, the highly original and captivating staging of the pre-Renaissance German masterpiece Death and the Ploughman (1401) by Johannes von Tepl, directed by the visual magician of Romania, Silviu Purcărete.

Death and the Ploughman. Photo: Iulian Ursachi. Courtesy of Varna Festival.

Of all his works I have seen so far, in my view, this is one of his most innovative, both conceptually and technically. It models how technology and live performance can merge fruitfully through an imaginative handling of space, time, presence and absence, in short, the very ontology of theatre. This production inimitably visualizes the tragedy of death and the disappearance of physical bodies, bridging what was and what is, the living and the dead, yet it also provides an additional channel of understanding through the felt emotion of a central character.

Historical archives typically tell us what happened and what individual people did, but they do not usually describe how people felt. This late medieval text gives us precisely that: how a farmer felt after losing his wife in an era when death was a daily visitor in people’s lives. Let us not forget that between 1347 and 1352, death claimed one-third of Europe’s population. Today, we have counselors, doctors, psychologists, and psychiatrists to help us process grief and control our fear of death. Back then, the poor farmer had no one with whom to share his thoughts and fears, except when striking up a conversation with his enemy, Death itself. And Death, with raw bluntness and unflinching realism, reminds him: “From the moment you are born, you are old enough to die.” In other words, we all end up in the same place, so why live at all? The uneducated peasant replies: “Because even though all is fleeting, to live and to love is the most precious thing.”

A common thread of humanity runs across all eras and links mourning, trauma and defeat. “What wrong have we done to you?” asks the peasant. “After pleasure comes the loss of pleasure,” replies Death. Pain and suffering mark the end of love; sorrow marks the end of joy. The answer is as simple and excruciating as that, from the mouth of a master of biopolitical power.

It is no coincidence that the author wrote this work immediately after his wife’s death on August 1, 1400; it might easily represent his thoughts and reflections born from a traumatic experience. The theatre maker might then ask: How does one represent inexpressible pain theatrically? How does theatre embody that which is invisible or beyond (death)? In addressing these questions, Purcărete triumphs. He masterfully uses the full arsenal of theatre and technology to deliver a stunning performative treatise, a “death seminar,” so to speak, a remarkable show set precisely on the threshold between life and death, truth and illusion, the here and now and there and then; now you see me, now you don’t. The reproduction machine on one side, the live body on the other, disappearance is their common experience.

At the couple’s dinner, lo and behold, the ghost of death appears between them. Photo: Iulian Ursachi. Courtesy of Varna Festival.

In seventy minutes, Purcărete delivered a work of dazzling quality and technical precision in which the viewer could scarcely tell what was real and what was virtual, where theatre ended and the invisible theatre of death began.  This encompassed the dematerialization of the stage and the denial of its present reality, while at the same time acknowledging its unsurpassed magic.

Andrei Cozlac’s video work was nothing short of astonishing, while the musical score by the director’s long-standing collaborator, Vasile Șirli, served as a model of atmospheric subtlety and emotional resonance. The stage design by Dragoș Buhagiar was at once minimalist and functional, comprising only a sofa, a bed that doubles as a tomb, an armchair, a door, a refrigerator and a desk at which the farmer, portrayed with exceptional depth by the outstanding lead actor Călin Chirilă, types out his thoughts: Truth or fiction? Does it really matter in the end? What truly counts is the overall quality of the endeavor. In sum, the performance was truly remarkable.

The farmer and his (dead) wife in the foreground. In his right hand, her grave. In the background, the farmer records his thoughts. Photo: Iulian Ursachi. Courtesy of Varna Festival.

The director wisely chose to transform the original dialogue into an interior monologue, thereby deepening the philosophical inquiry at the heart of the original work. In his interpretation, all elements functions dually, mirroring the very nature of theatre itself: image and corporeal presence, ghost and materiality. Everything appears and disappears. Nothing remains fixed long enough to be grasped or rationalized. Life is transient; everything is uncertain, a phantom.

Representation is challenged by the fluidity of theatrical boundaries; presence is interrupted by the incursion of the image. What are we truly witnessing? Could it be our own death, a presence that dwells within us regardless?

As disturbing as the idea may be, it remains unchanged: all living beings owe a death, just as every performance, the moment the stage lights rise, sets out to fulfill its destiny: to surrender its ethereal corpse to the audience.

To read PART II of this report, go to this link.