Public Republic

An Interview with Mayia Pramatarova by Jasmina Tacheva

Photo: Vladimir Gusev

Mayia Pramatarova is the American correspondent for the LIK magazine (Sofia) and The Stage Journal (Moscow). She is a Visiting Professor at the National Academy (Theatre and Film Arts Department) and the New Bulgarian University in Sofia, Bulgaria. Since 1992 she is founder and editor of the Et Cetera arts almanac. Mayia holds a M.Sc. degree in Russian Literature from Saint-Petersburg University and a Ph. D. degree in Theatre Studies from the Russian Academy of Theater Arts (GITIS), Moscow.

From 1993 to 2002 she worked as a theatrical researcher and a dramaturg for many theater organizations in Bulgaria, including the Ivan Vazov National Theater. Between 1995 and 2002 she taught as an Adjunct Professor at the Theatre Department of the New Bulgarian University, Sofia. From 2002 to 2006 she served as a cultural advisor at the Bulgarian Cultural Institute in Moscow, Russia. Mayia lectured at the Russian Academy of Theater Arts (GITIS) in the spring of 2004.

She is the author of more than 200 publications for Bulgarian, Russian, Italian and American magazines and newspapers. She authored the books: Robert Sturua`s Twelfth Night, Sofia, 2007; Stoyan Kambarev. Mirrors, (with N. Vandov ). Sofia, 2000; compiled and edited GESTUS. Contemporary Russian Theatre, Sofia, 2006; Yordan Raditchkov. An Attempt to Fly and other plays. Moscow, 2005; translated a text book History of Russian Drama Theatre. Sofia, 1989.

Her plays, “The Revolver” and “Kill This Woman” have been nominated for the Bulgarian National Prize “Askeer” (Sofia, Bulgaria)

When and how did theater first spark your interest?

Even as a student I used to run to the theater after class, but I turned to professional theater at the Leningrad University, where among the elective courses a course in playwriting was offered. I wrote my first term paper on Bulgakov’s “The Days of the Turbines”. There was only one volume of his plays in the reading room, as, by the way, of the plays of Vampilov as well. This year I came back to those great masters, this time as a translator. In late March, the Bulgarian National Theatre presented Alexander Vampilov’s play “Duck Hunting”, directed by Yuri Butusov.

Photo: Kill This Woman! Toronto, Dec 13.2009 A play by Mayia Pramatarova, produced by onewaytheater.us; Photo Credit: Katerina Lyadova

After nearly twenty-five years you switched from writing critical texts and books on theater to playwriting. Why and how do you think this transition happened?

I think that in different stages of life, one has different dominants. As a young critic, I had to learn to be brief, because most journals required reviews to be 30 lines and 60 characters long. They allowed more pages only for interviews. At one point I started to actively translate and teach. When you follow your own internal logic, it leads you best, and it is essential for me that whatever the wave may be, the shore will always be the theater.

Photo: Rehearsal of “Kill This Woman!” A play by Mayia Pramatarova, produced by onewaytheater.us; Photo Credit: Katerina Lyadova

What are the differences and similarities between the critic and the playwright?

Words are the same and when the critic writes essays, his/her texts have an artistic and not just an analytical value. For the critic, it is important to filter the processes in art; if I should paraphrase Umberto Eco – to weave them into the web of time and space. The critic is oftentimes an editor as well.

For nearly ten years in the 90’s together with a group of friends, I was issuing the art almanac “Et Cetera” in which we presented exceptional people of art such as: Vera Nedkova, Giya Kancheli, Eimuntas Nekrosius, Emma Thompson, Joseph Brodsky, Raina Kabaivanska and many others.

Photo: Don’t Take the Bridge by Mayia Pramatarova. Staged reading. Director Stavri Karamfilov. Photocredit: Anya Roz

This March, in New York, was the premiere of your third play – “Don’t Take the Bridge”. It literally took place on the eve of the World Theatre Day. What are your impressions of the event?

It was an interesting process on many levels. Initially, we were thinking of a classical reading of the play, but the director Stavri Karamfilov made a casting and when he met the actors with the script, he undertook an experiment. He assigned two actors for each role and thus a play for the three characters and a parrot was represented by seven actors.

Photo: Albena Kervanbashieva, Tony Naumovski, Jo Jo Hristova, Vanina Kondova, Evgenia Radilova, Sergey Nagorny Don’t Take the Bridge by Mayia Pramatarova. Staged reading. Director Stavri Karamfilov. Photocredit: Anya Roz

Each of them plays both him- or herself and the character, revealing different sides and features of the image assigned by the drama. Thus, the absurd embedded implicitly in the text increased and it sounded simultaneously ironic and full of content. There is no greater gift for the playwright than the opportunity to see his/her script uttered and felt by so many good artists.

Photo: Hristina Hristova, Evgenia Radilova Don’t Take the Bridge by Mayia Pramatarova. Staged reading. Director Stavri Karamfilov. Photocredit: Anya Roz

Alumni of European and American theater schools, they proved to be the right interpreters of the play’s characters in which the ideosyncrasies of our time are revealed in an “unbearably light” way.

Photo: Jo Jo Hristova, Tony Naumovski, Vanina Kondova” Don’t Take the Bridge by Mayia Pramatarova. Staged reading. Director Stavri Karamfilov. Photocredit: Anya Roz

What were the questions and comments from the audience after the premiere?

The curiosity about Stavri Karamfilov’s staging decision to divide the characters was great. Interest was also evoked by a ritual implemented in the text, according to which one of the female characters – just like in Proust, bakes Madeleine cookies every day, trying to retain the flavor of the past through their fragrance.

Photo: Jo Jo Hristova, Vanina Kondova, Tony Naumovski” Don’t Take the Bridge by Mayia Pramatarova. Staged reading. Director Stavri Karamfilov. Photocredit: Anya Roz

In our global time each one of us is coming from or headed somewhere, spurred by technologies. No recipes for living in that acceleration have been discovered, and the pains of disloyalty and love are the same as before when they used to hurry slowly, and they are the markers in the text.

Photo: Tony Naumovski, Vanina Kondova” Don’t Take the Bridge by Mayia Pramatarova. Staged reading. Director Stavri Karamfilov. Photocredit: Anya Roz

The theatre critic Dr. Violeta Decheva defines “Don’t Take the Bridge” as a sequel to your two previous plays – “Kill That Woman!” and “Revolver”. She notices in all three of them the issue of “transfer” – of the crossing of borders, internal and external; of human communication – within ourselves and with the world around us. As someone who has crossed so many cultural, social and linguistic boundaries, how would you comment on this topic in the life of modern people? In your opinion, what is today’s person most afraid of and what does s/he hope for?

Photo: Albena Kervanbashieva Don’t Take the Bridge by Mayia Pramatarova. Staged reading. Director Stavri Karamfilov. Photocredit: Anya Roz

Fears are dozing off in us all the time: both external and internal, they eat into us like acid. The world today is uniform and extremely unpredictable. My grandmother Maria was already a mother of three children when she first saw the sea, and today’s children enter the web and surf around the world before they can even speak. And hence the feeling that everything is at your fingertips.

Photo: Evgenia Radilova, Sergey Nagorny Don’t Take the Bridge by Mayia Pramatarova. Staged reading. Director Stavri Karamfilov. Photocredit: Anya Roz

In “Don’t Take the bridge”, the love story falls apart not because the characters don’t love each other, but because he, a boy who has never left Manhattan, refuses to enter the matrix of the successful life. Having no idea about his future, he holds on to the past and is very attached to his aunt with her Madeleines and theater stories.

Photo: Jo Jo Hristova, Tony Naumovski, Albena Kervanbashieva, Evgenia Radilova” Don’t Take the Bridge by Mayia Pramatarova. Staged reading. Director Stavri Karamfilov. Photocredit: Anya Roz

The girl, his beloved, comes from a distant part of New York and she thinks she knows the true recipe for a good life, but that’s precisely the one that doesn’t work today. They both have their dark sides and Stavri Karamfilov searches for them by constructing those internal counterparts, like a shadow and a body, according to his own expression.

Photo: Sergey Nagorny Don’t Take the Bridge by Mayia Pramatarova. Staged reading. Director Stavri Karamfilov. Photocredit: Anya Roz

Your work as a playwright and director includes a broad mix of classic theatre techniques and the latest multimedia technologies. What is achieved by bringing this interactivity to the stage? What difference does it make in the perception of the viewer?

The performances of onewaytheater.us develop methods of interaction between the artist and the interactive multimedia and this is a great experience for me because I work together with Vladimir Gusev who knows no bounds in this area.

Multimedia in the theater are like any other means – sound, light, but they entered the theater stage relatively recently and hence the passion for them. A perfect example of their optimal use are Robert Lepage’s plays. Last night in Boston I watched his show, “The Andersen Project” and was fascinated by the simplicity and perfection with which the actor Yves Jacques and technology came together to tell a story.

Photo: Jo Jo HristovaDon’t Take the Bridge by Mayia Pramatarova. Staged reading. Director Stavri Karamfilov. Photocredit: Anya Roz

Your previous two plays were included in the list of nominees for the annual “A’Askeer” theater awards. Will we see “Don’t Take the Bridge” on this year’s list?

No, I don’t think so, because this time my new script was presented in a different way and it is relatively late to participate in the competition.

Photo: The Revolver. Poster front. A play by Mayia Pramatarova, produced by onewaytheater.us

What is “Don’t Take the Bridge” in line for? Where and when will its next performances take place?

I hope in the fall. Right now, we are considering how to make a series of performances in New York City happen.

As a specialist with a great insight into the theater scene in America, Europe and Russia, what would you say about the state of theater in these geographical territories? Are you an optimist about its development?

Photo: The Revolver. Poster back. A play by Mayia Pramatarova, produced by onewaytheater.us

America, Russia and Europe are three very different theater theritorries which are as close to one another as they are distant. In Russia, theater is still а space tolerated by the state, it’s an area for a selected few, especially if you work for a company in Moscow or Petersburg with directors like Rimas Tuminas or Yuri Butusov. If anything has changed at all, it is the big difference between good and bad performances, the gap has grown large and even on the most theatrical street – “Tverskaya”, “dead theaters” can be seen.

In Europe, which also cannot be reduced to a common denominator, the best can be seen from Berlin’s example. That’s a city in which much is invested in culture and theater; there, clear strategies and programs of the theaters, each with their own look and audience, have been outlined. Over there, the theater is involved in the dispute about society’s way in the singular world.

Photo: “The Revolver” rehearsals” A play by Mayia Pramatarova. Ivan Angelov & Gina DiDonato. December 15 2010 Rehearsal of “The Revolver” by onewaytheater.us
Photographer: Michael Gusev

America is the third heterogeneous theater territory: there are places where the word theater is only associated with the building, while in New York City there are streets where several kinds of theater can be seen at the same time. In New York, things are happening here and now and are great, especially when connecting European and American experience, as in the performances of Robert Wilson, for example.

The actors in “Don’t take the Bridge” are people who have been educated in Europe and continued to study here in schools such as Lee Strasberg’s “Actors Studio”, the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, the Atlantic Acting School, etc. They combine internal and external flexibility, ambition and talent – all of which are prerequisites for good theater.

Photo: “The Revolver” rehearsals” A play by Mayia Pramatarova. Ivan Angelov & Gina DiDonato. December 15 2010 Rehearsal of “The Revolver” by onewaytheater.us
Photographer: Michael Gusev

I would like to list them because they didn’t know one another before we started, but they already are a real company: Albena Kervanbashieva, Evgenia Radilova, Vanina Kondova, JoJo Hristova, Christina Christova, Tony Naumovski and Sergey Nagorny. An important element of the action is the music of George Arnaudov that the director Stavri Karamfilov has turned into one of the characters with Vladimir Gusev’s multimedia.

As for optimism, yes, I am optimistic, both by nature, and because today, living art is becoming increasingly necessary to the people that have grown weary of technologies and mediated communication.

Photo: “The Revolver” rehearsals” A play by Mayia Pramatarova. Ivan Angelov & Gina DiDonato. December 15 2010 Rehearsal of “The Revolver” by onewaytheater.us
Photographer: Michael Gusev

What features of your work that draws on the experience of European and Russian drama, do you think are most intriguing and unfamiliar to the American audience?

American audience is either on 4th street where the “La Mama” theater and three other theaters in a very small perimeter are, or in other theaters around Times Square. If we can generalize at all, the mass audience prefers to step on some story, to see some character development, but at the same time, such a great curiosity to experimenting like the one in New York, can rarely be seen elsewhere.

There is a big desire to get into the specifics of one or another stage expression and try out something new, be it even doing theater in which part of the company is on the Atlantic coast and the other – on the side of the Pacific Ocean.

Photo: “The Revolver” rehearsals” Premiere of “The Revolver” by onewaytheater.us. December 18, 2010. Gina DiDonato as Woman. Ivan Angelov as Man. onewaytheater.us/ Michael Gusev

Nothing is impossible if we ourselves do not set limits to our minds and therefore part of our experiment with performing “Don’t Take the Bridge” was to show the premiere online in real time. I was delighted at the evaluation of a Darik radio journalist who stumbled upon our online premiere – he was pleased to be able to watch a live theater event taking place in New York from Sofia.

As for my texts, I don’t have one single answer. Maybe the paradox implemented in them, the various perspectives, the absurd situations the characters themselves form, are interesting. In my plays, life and art are closely intertwined; the problems of the one are solved with the arguments of the other and that is built consistently, based on the principle of communicating vessels.

Photo: “The Revolver” in New York CityFeb. 25 2011. Performance of The Revolver by onewaytheater.us at the Bulgarian Consulate General in Manhattan, New York. Feb. 25 2011.
Photo credit STANISLAVA GEORGIEVA

Where are the theater, the texts and the performances going – are they moving towards universalisation or, on the contrary – the national characteristics of the playwright, the actors and the directors are standing out more and more?

I don’t think that national peculiarities by themselves are interesting, unless they overlap with universal problems and issues. Otherwise we are talking about local interests. I saw a performance recently that was based on the personal memories of immigrants from the last two decades of the twentieth century who have migrated from Russia to America.

Photo: Rehearsal of “Kill This Woman!” A play by Mayia Pramatarova, produced by onewaytheater.us; Photo Credit: Katerina Lyadova

The scenes in which the memories were carrying hues from the socialist past too specific sounded anecdotic, but in the ones in which immigration was treated as something which is being redefined anew today, the show was real.

Does the fact that you live away from home affect your style, ideas and inspiration in any way?

To me, language is my home, in this sense I follow Brodsky. Practically, I have never broken the ties with the cities and theaters where I used to work ten years ago – I do translations, I meet my colleagues here and at home…

Photo: Kill This Woman! Toronto, Dec 13.2009 A play by Mayia Pramatarova, produced by onewaytheater.us; Photo Credit: Katerina Lyadova

One of the actors in the team of “Don’t Take the Bridge,” Sergei Nagorny, is of Russian descent but was born in New York. During the rehearsals, he started to understand a little Bulgarian although his colleagues would talk to him mostly in English – the language of performance.

He is a person who keeps enriching himself from the new cultures without losing the old ones and this is natural if our approach is not biased. As for my texts – they have their own life. They have so far been staged in 5 countries in 4 languages ​​and I hope they can be performed on Bulgarian stage too.

Where do you find most support for your projects?

In the people who trust me and whom I trust, in our joint energies. The team of “Don’t Take the Bridge” brought many talented people together and talent is a great force even in pragmatic times like ours.

What’s next?

In a few days I am leaving for Moscow and Sofia. In Moscow, I’m going to watch the performances of one of the greatest Russian theater festivals “Golden Mask”, and discuss a new theater project with the Director of the International “Meyerhold” Center. In Sofia, I’ll be looking forward to seeing “Duck Hunting” directed by Yuri Butusov at the National Theatre. I will meet with many friends and relatives on Easter!

Photo: Rehearsal of “Kill This Woman!” A play by Mayia Pramatarova, produced by onewaytheater.us; Photo Credit: Katerina Lyadova

Ten years ago, at the National Theater, we were rehearsing “Twelfth Night” by Shakespeare till very late. Shortly before midnight, the director Robert Sturua interrupted the rehearsal. It was the night of Easter, we did the ritual right on the stage and when I came home I felt as cleansed as those who were coming back from church.

March 28, 2012

New York

Translated by: Jasmina Tacheva
Edited by: Lauren Sophie Kearney