A husband being tolerant to his wife’s lover and  turns out to be the lover himself. No, that is not a random case of schizophrenia. This is the plot of Harold Pinter’s genius play “The Lover”, which was performed during this semester’s theatrical season at AUBG. Continue reading…

A bizarre performance, centered on the touchy subject of race segregation, was the first event ever to be staged in the new theater in the ABF. And what a kick-off!  Of course, for the ones that did not get it by now, I am describing the premiere of the new AUBG musical “Memphis”. Continue reading…

I am a JMC major. This hides in itself a few sub-statements: I love learning new things; I enjoy telling people’s stories; I truly believe JMC is the major that is closest to capturing and dealing with what is really important in life. Continue reading…

Opinion piece by Igor Myakotin

Green carpet, entirely made of real grass, leads to the front doors of the National Palace of Culture (NPC) in Sofia. People, crowded together and soaking wet under the rain, slowly enter the largest multifunctional congress, convention and exhibition center in the Southeastern Europe – NPC. Filmmakers, directors, producers, reporters, movie fans, students and rubbernecks – all in one place. We would fall into the category of students. More precisely, students from the American University in Bulgaria (AUBG), members of AUBG Documentary Movie Club. And yes, this is the opening night of Sofia International Film Festival (SIFF), held from Match 7 until March 24, 2013. Continue reading…

Two weeks ago I got a message from a friend of mine, Iris Buzi, fourth-year student from Albania, asking me for help regarding a situation with her Bulgarian ID card.

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When I entered the room everybody was quiet.  A big, muscular guy was sitting in front of me . In his gloved hands he was holding a small machine… Continue reading…

The question of the influence physical characteristics have on a person’s life is as old as the world itself. When human beings became mobile and literate enough to travel and explore the world, they realized people are not the same. There were various pigmentation, skull forms, face proportions and different ways of life. Continue reading…

Passionate, funny, moving, illuminating….The Kitchen by Arnold Wesker was debuted during  AUBG’s theatre season on Tuesday, December 4^th. Continue reading…

Social differences, the virtue of the poor and the menace of the rich – we have seen it all. Student actors put a truly positive spin on what could easily turn into a preacher. With their version of Bertolt Brecht’s The Caucasian Chalk Circle they managed to convey before the audience’s eyes the many forms of goodness in the midst of a crisis. Continue reading…

“Civilization began the first time an angry person cast a word instead of a rock,” Sigmund Freud said once. True to this statement, the satirical play God of Carnage, staged in the Main Building Auditorium  last Saturday and Sunday (December 1st and 2nd), had its four, almost overly-civilized, protagonists losing their religion on stage, brawling homophobic remarks, while discussing marriage and human rights, vomiting over the furniture, destroying each other’s property and even physically assaulting one another. “I believe in the god of carnage, the god whose rule’s been unchallenged since time immemorial” – a rather gloomy observation on humanity which is, however, mitigated by the brilliant humor of the performance.

Based on Yasmina Reza’s highly-acclaimed Le Dieu du carnag, which was adapted to a 2010 feature black comedy film, Carnage, the independent production was organized and directed by AUBG student Sofya Volkhonskaya. “She is a great director because she doesn’t tell you what to do,” said Igor Myakotin, who starred as the husband in one of the two couples. “She guides you, directs you. She’s like a good parent: she gives actors the freedom but she knows the final destination and it’s up to the actors to figure out the way.”

After a standard auditioning process, four actors and actresses were picked – Nataliya Shevchuck, Nikola Mladenovic, Yuliya Suderkina and Igor Myakotin. The preparation for the performance, naturally, had its challenges – for example, finding a convincing method to portray vomiting without actually spattering liquefied food on stage.

“The play is quite complicated, actually,” said Nikola Mladenovic. “It appears simple but there are many different layers that the actors needed to discover. Same goes for my character, there’s much more to him than the outer layer of a busy lawyer. When portraying my character it’s easy to run into some clichés.” In spite of the difficulties, the cast-members managed to bond well during the rehearsals, the results of which were clearly seen during the performance.

“Having had terrible experiences working on group projects, I would say that this one was perfect.” said Nataliya Shevchuk. “Minor disagreements and rehearsal scheduling issues can be disregarded. A couple of times we turned our rehearsals into team-buildings but I think this was important and contributed to a healthy team cooperation.”

During the first performance on Saturday, the auditorium was barely able to hold the audience inside its walls, while only a limited number of people showed up on the second night, likely due to the bad weather and the piles of academic assignments dropped on the student body by faculty members.

God of Carnage proved to be another example of students combining independent creativity and perseverance to produce outstanding extra-curricular results, even when walled in by academic deadlines.

“I think the audience enjoyed the play,” said Igor Myakotin.

“It’s fun to see four grown-ups lose it before our eyes and, in a way, become childish and turn the evening into chaos. It’s not [just] satire [though], there’s a little subtext to the play and that’s what I like about it.”