February 23 (Rositsa Ilieva of BTA) - Sofia's Vazrajdane Theatre is opening its new season with a play it staged during the strictest coronavirus lockdown in 2020. BTA joined the theatre company during online rehearsals of Act Three of "The Night of the Iguana" last April when no more than two persons were allowed to gather and the actors' only choice, if they wanted to work, was video conferencing on Internet.

Having been part of the process, BTA was eager to see the final result on stage.

"The Night of the Iguana" is a play that Tennessee Williams, known as "the poet of lost souls", wrote based on his 1948 short story. The play premiered on Broadway in 1961, followed by two film adaptations, including the 1964 Oscar-winning rendition by John Huston.

In Bulgaria, "The Night of the Iguana" was last performed twenty years ago.

The first-night performance of the new production is February 26.

Director Vessela Vassileva says it is a play with thousands of points of intersection and a perfect balance between despair and happiness. She likens it to a rondo, a carousel with a never-ending tune, a picture taken from a moving train.

"The Night of the Iguana" was translated for the Vazrajdane Theatre by BTA's Zlatna Kostova. It uses poems by Charles Bukowski and Georgi Borissov. The cast includes Georgi Zlatarev, Zhana Rasheva, Donka Avramova-Bocheva, Sanya Borissova, Svezhen Mladenov and Mariana Zhikich with the guest appearance of Bulgarian theatre star Stefan Mavrodiev as Jonathan Coffin .

After the premiere on February 26-27, the play will perform on March 9 and 27.
RI/LN/





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