Alexander Morfov >> news >> 27.02.2019
Anniversary: NT Bulgaria's "Life Is Beautiful" celebrates its 150-th performance
Exactly one week before its premiere seven years ago, one of Morfov's symbolic productions is celebrating its 150-th anniversary show tonight. The pivotal production in the National Theatre's repertory "Life Is Beautiful" has been selling out the hall within hours and enjoying viewers' adoration since.
Receiver of three awards and two nominations, it has travelled the major festivals in Bulgaria and just recently it also visited Stara Zagora, only to impress local audience even stronger.
The production was also acclaimed by international guests and Morfov received invitations to stage his original production at Dailes Teatris in Riga (2012), at Gesher Theatre in Tel Aviv (2013) and, of course, the most recent one - on the stage of the Macedonian National Theatre (2016).
The director's deep and tragic realisation of everyone wishing you dead for the sake of his own ambitions has become ever more clear with the recent years but this has grown along with Morfov's understanding that "man has to live through hell to realise that life, at the end of it, is something very valuable."
The proofs are at hand, as Alexander Morfov will mark the anniversaries of two of his emblematic productions on the stage of Ivan Vazov within less than a month.
"Life Is Beautiful" premiered in 2012 on the stage of Ivan Vazov Theatre
Russian black comedy of the twenties, 'The Suicide' satirises the plight of an unemployed man, desperate enough to contemplate ending it all. The play considers the nature of humour; the hearts of the self-centred characters who will use anyone to further their own selfish aims; and the triumph of the individual, who keeps his dignity in a society where the slogan "for each and all" echoes emptily. For Semyon, only the prospect of death can give the individual the freedom to act and speak as he wishes. ~ Jo German
More about the production here.
If there is anyone who can turn the theatre stage into an epicenter of loud, noisy, celebration full of lively nonchalance and desperate optimism, his name is Alexander Morfov. In his productions feast, music and joy always erupt unexpectedly, seemingly out of place, and inevitably with an immense power that instantly overflows around, raises up to the sky and sweeps away greyness of daily life, despair, unfulfilled dreams and unreached lives. It transforms into a symbol of revelry of the desperate. ~ S. Pancheva, duma.bg, 2012
After all the unforgettable Shakespearean productions - rich in their spirit and flesh, and the other true achievements on theatre stage, Morfov staged many other classical plays - some of them tragedies, some of them widely discussed by the media. But all of them memorable.
~ I. Antonova, mdl.bg, 2013
Celebrated as he is, Morfov is yet to unveil the vast Shakespearean horizons. Soon.
© 2019 by mdemireva
