by Ingmar Bergman
Krum Filipov
Vasa Gancheva
Venelin Shurelov
Elitsa Georgieva
Hristo Namliev
Zhoreta Nikolova, Aleksandra Vasileva, Albena Stavreva, and Stoyan Pepelanov
Years ago, the amazingly talented artist Kolyo Karamfilov shared with me that "the face is God’s seal." Bergman is a poet of the human face—the "other face," the invisible one, withdrawn into the shadow of the personality, flickering beneath the surface of apparent composure, provoked out of patience, ecstatically losing its balance. In Autumn Sonata, the hidden face, in the incarnations of mother and daughter, appears to shift the focus from the superficial to destroy the deceptive outer shell of the everyday, and to transform "daily life" (bit) into "existence" (bitie). This nocturnal face is born of dreams, filled with passion, wounded, fierce, and frantic. In this face, however, a religious hope glimmers. In Autumn Sonata, Bergman does not point to salvation, but reveals the thirst for it. The performance consists of the sensation of mercy as an event, rather than a result.
The very human effort toward mercy transforms Autumn Sonata into an existential event with the impact of an ancient tragedy—simultaneously Medea and Electra.
Mirela Ivanova
Irina Ivanova
Premiere: April 23 and 24, 2026
