ART PORTAL NEWS: "AUTUMN SONATA" - TO DIVE INTO THE PAIN OF THE PAST AND DESTROY A LEGACY
„Autumn Sonata" seizes the soul instantly and plunges you into a dream where even the most painful scars of the past are revealed. On the stage of the „City Mark Art Center" theatre in Sofia, behind white, ethereal curtains, hides a woman woven from the pain of childhood and from the most searing loss - that of her first-born child. She bares her soul before the full hall. This role is embodied by the gentle flower of Bulgarian theatre and cinema - Yoana Bukovska.
More than 20 years ago she received an "Askeer" award for her supporting female role as Helena in the cult production „Autumn Sonata" by director Mladen Kiselov, staged at Theatre 199. Today she is again part of the play, but in a different role - that of Helena’s sister, Eva.
The masterpiece by the playwright Ingmar Bergman revives the "Ivan Radoev" Drama and Puppet Theatre - Pleven.
Who is the person who plays a key role in creating the feeling of a lack of belonging in the individual? Who is the one with whom we identify and define ourselves in the early stages of life? Of course, it is the mother. If, however, she is absent from the child’s daily life and her only role is to be a judge of its actions and feelings, then consciously or subconsciously she builds an impenetrable wall between them - year after year, day after day.
Thus only anger, fear and even hatred are unleashed - all those feelings leading to self-destructiveness. Reality becomes a trap full of memories. In it, a grown child continues to live with the monsters from the corners of the nursery. The only way to heal its traumas is perhaps to admit the truth to itself out loud...
This ruined world of a grown-up little girl is revealed by Yoana Bukovska in her role as Eva. She has grown used to the absence and indifference of her mother. After seven years without any contact between them, the moment comes when they must once again face one another.
She is seized by fear and inexplicable happiness. She seems to fly from one end of the stage to the other as she re-reads the invitation she has sent her mother. Meanwhile she explains to her husband Viktor, played by Adrian Filipov, why she used precisely these words.
The most-awaited moment arrives - Eva’s mother, the beautiful and very youthful pianist Charlotte (Marieta Kalapova), arrives in all her splendour. But instead of warm embraces and tender questions, she brings with her an unusual coldness that sent shivers through me.
Suddenly the hall grows very quiet - somehow awkward. On stage appears Eva’s sister, Helena (Kameliya Hatib), who is in a wheelchair. Only the barely formulated words of the sick girl are heard, trying to explain the joy of seeing her mother again before her.
„If only I do not start crying, I must leave", Charlotte whispers aloud the moment her daughters leave the room. She tries to swallow her shock and tries to hide her guilt over the missed years with them behind her long red evening dress and very beautiful jewellery. Preparing to sit at the well-laid table prepared by her first-born daughter, she for the first time confronts the greatest pain of her daughter Eva. She and her husband reveal the pain of losing their child... These revelations made the mother shudder and prevented her from falling asleep.
A thousand thoughts and torments pass through her head, and also a nightmare that shakes her to the core. In the small hours of the night her daughter Eva appears with an almost-drained bottle of wine - her eyes overflowing with tears.
„I am dreaming, am I not? You do not exist!",
her mother exclaims in fright. But no, this time it was not a dream - but that reality, full of painful truth, which hits you like a slap and leaves you speechless. Going back over her memories - from her father’s embraces to meeting her one great love — she reveals for the first time before her own mother the consequences of every thoughtless word, every escape or reproach of hers.
„You have hated me for years!", Charlotte points out, sobbing and explaining that she saw the same upbringing from her own parents... „Will you not forgive me?", her words echo in the audience.
„The sense of reality is a gift that most people do not possess. In that, perhaps, lies their chance". This phrase stayed with me for a long time.
It helped me realise how difficult and brave it is to look into the depths of your soul and share your most intimate thoughts with another person, and in particular with the mother - the person who gave you life.
But why? The answer is that sometimes mothers, as happens in the performance, are not gentle and caring, but become your greatest enemy.
The performance „Autumn Sonata" presents a vicious circle. In it, hatred is passed from generation to generation and becomes ever harder to root out.
Perhaps the only way to do it and to „unlock" the path to change is the realisation that everything comes from the past?
Art Portal News: „Autumn Sonata" - to dive into the pain of the past and destroy a legacy", Author: Simona Ivanova