Highways Performance Space@18th Street Arts Center
1651 18th Street Santa Monica, CA 90404
½ Block north of the Olympic Blvd.
Fridays + Saturdays, October 7 – 29 @ 8.00pm
Sundays, October 9 – 30 @ 3.00pm
For tickets, go to www.highwaysperformance.org
$25 general admission / $20 students, seniors
Opens: October 07, 2016
Closes October 30, 201
Bulgarian leading contemporary playwright, Hristo Boytchev, sets his play in a small psychiatric ward situated in a former monastery lost somewhere in the Balkan mountains. While surrounded by a raging war, five female and one transgender patient, and a young doctor are left to their fate. When UN planes accidentally drop military supplies in the compound, the patients begin to role-play soldiers. This effort takes them to the most improbable emotional, mental, and physical journey across Europe, and into their own hearts and minds. This highly physical and visually strong production connects the work strongly with the horrors of the present day Syrian refugee situation in Europe. Hristo Boythchev is Bulgarian playwright whose plays have been staged in more than 40 countries on five continents. The Colonel and the Birds is a female version of his most translated and performed drama, The Colonel Bird. This extraordinary play is a tale about outcasts. Unfortunately, today’s world is full of outcasts (refugees, homeless, foreigners, immigrants, mentally ill…anybody who is in any way, shape, or form different than the “majority”).
These outcasts are attacked, offended, and exiled. In the best-case scenario, they are simply ignored by the majority. This play addresses this tricky and often ignored topic with force and gentility, power and poetics, and through soldiers and birds. How many times do we all feel crazy and want to spread our wings to escape the madness in life? Are we brave enough to face our fears for the common good? This is a play about despair and hope, a play about sacrificing oneself for fellow humans.
•This show was originally produced and performed at the Loyola Marymount University, Barnelle Theatre, from October 29-‐Nov 7, 2015
