‘A civil society means not only a single protest, but a whole body, capable of conducting a dialogue among its separate representatives. The civil society should be a factor which is alive and awake, reacting immediately to any injustice within the state, to any blow or mistake of those in charge’ – words of young director and screenwriter Alexander Manuiloff. He has managed to gather the whole palette of a contemporary society’s problems into his text performance, named Darzhavata /The State/.

Critics know this author’s dramaturgy and his original director’s vision, but The State definitely has succeeded in attracting the attention of the most distinguished experts in theatre. They gave the appraisal, stating that the author’s approach was fully innovative and unknown so far.

Translated into 5 European languages, the text of Alexander Manuiloff has ‘spoken’ to the multinational foreign audience for a couple of years now. However, recently The State saw its Bulgarian interpretation – very bright and close to the individual, at the same time having its direct impact on the senses of the young audience. In Sofia the innovative piece of art talks in first person singular and with the voice of Plamen Goranov – the young man known by his spontaneous combustion act, protesting against the injustice of the state. ‘Plamen did get inside me as a topic, he was like: ‘Here I am - a part of the state and you should agree with me!’ director Alexander Manuiloff says and adds:

‘I myself was really emotionally affected by the fact that someone might set his own body on fire due to problems in the state. It is a desperate and extreme act which shows how many things have got wrong into our Bulgaria. Plamen wasn’t even the only one – maybe 13 or 14 more did the same – and most of them were young and healthy people with professions. I found it natural to pick up that topic at a certain moment as well. It happened precisely with The State show. The theatre approach for reduction of actors’ performance at the expense of the audience’s participation is not that new. ‘It gives the feeling of more power given to viewers than to the artist. Also the audience takes the side of the artist as a participant and this process is endlessly interesting,’ Alexander Manuiloff says. Furthermore:

‘The main concept comes to show that we need to discuss, to try to say what democracy is to us and how it functions. Also to show it, to live it through via some stage, theatre model of performance – that was my idea.’

English version: Zhivko Stanchev