JOHN AND JOE

after Agota Kristof

Translation - Natasha Kolevska 

Director – Tsveti Penyashki

Set and costumes - Yasmin Mandelli

Music - Milen Apostolov

Choreographer - Yavor Kunchev

Poster - Nikolay Dimitrov NAD

Cast: Dimitar Zhivkov, Tigran Torosyan, Maria Rushanova and Ivan-Aleksandar Doychev 

„John and Joe“ is a minimalist absurdist play by the Hungarian-Swiss writer Agota Kristof. In it two characters, John and Joe, sit at a table in a café and carry on a strange, seemingly disjointed dialogue, full of comic misunderstandings and absurd twists.

With simple means and laconic dialogue the actors manage to convey the fragility of human relationships and the elusive nature of happiness. The play is at once funny and sad, confronting the viewer with questions of friendship, fate, chance and the inevitability of life’s cycles.

„John and Joe“ by the Hungarian-Swiss author Agota Kristof is one of the so-called actor’s theatrical texts, and it is no coincidence that for the two actors Dimitar Zhivkov-Zhivaka and Tigran Torosyan staging it had been a dream since their student years. Staged all over the world, „John and Joe“ is one of those plays that, through the means of the comic and the tragic, turn a pair of actors into a beloved duo. 

With seemingly simple and repetitive dialogue the actors manage to convey the fragility of human relationships and the elusive nature of happiness. The play is at once funny and sad, confronting the viewer with questions of friendship, fate, chance and the inevitability of life’s cycles.

Agota Kristof was a Hungarian-Swiss writer and the winner of many international literary awards. In 1956, at just 21, she left Hungary and fled to Switzerland, where she remained until the end of her life. Better known for her novels, translated into more than 15 languages, Agota Kristof wrote entirely in French. She also established herself as an author of theatrical texts, writing in 1972 the absurdist miniature „John and Joe“, originally conceived as a radio play. In Bulgaria it was published in „Panorama“ magazine.

Agota Kristof’s theatre develops along the line of comedy, which at a certain moment falls into bitterness and sorrow. In her texts one can easily find influences of Beckett, Ionesco and even Cioran, but at their core the social and the political stand out. Her characters John and Joe, whom we find in a street café, conduct a seemingly almost absurd dialogue, which we can be sure is probably happening for at least the hundredth time – or for the first; none of us will ever be quite sure which is true. They are clownishly laconic, poetic and touching. The paradoxical situations reveal themes such as poverty, friendship and loneliness, and in a Chaplinesque way Joe’s question arises: „How is it that some people have money? Lots of money. Constantly. They spend it and still have it. Always?“

Premiere 8 March 2025