An English play tells about the rescue of the Bulgarian Jews

Joseph Cullen: It is important to remember the rescue of Bulgarian Jews as an ‎example of opposition to the Holocaust

published on 6/21/23 1:35 PM

Photo: outoftheforesttheatre.com

The Edinburgh International Theatre Festival is an annual event held since ‎‎1947 in the last three weeks of August. It features some of the best artists in the ‎performing arts. An occasion to pay attention to this year's edition are... ‎important pages of Bulgarian history transformed into a theatrical production - ‎‎"The Brief Life and Mysterious Death of Boris III, Tsar of the Bulgarians". The ‎author of the play is the Englishman Joseph Cullen, who also plays the leading ‎part in it. ‎

‎"I grew up in Somerset, which is a very rural county about 120 miles from ‎London. I come from a family of rural farming people. Then I moved to ‎London and spent about 8 years in London working freelance as a performer, ‎writer, stage manager, producer. I always wanted to be working on theatre and ‎events in some way. I enjoy performing very much but I do not need to be on ‎stage", says Joseph about himself in an interview for Radio Bulgaria.

Writer/actor Joseph Cullen in interview for Radio Bulgaria

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"I moved back out of London to Somerset ‎and outside of working for theatre and events, I am project managing the ‎reopening of a nature reserve. People do not actually travel very far so a big ‎inspiration for me is how we take the stories to them if people who don’t leave ‎or don’t want to leave. They still deserve to hear the stories of people around ‎the world who are doing incredible things. A big thing I would like to do with ‎our company and Out of the Forest Theatre is while we make plays that we ‎would like to stage on very big stages, I also want to be making theatre that we ‎perform outside in the fields, and in schools.”‎

While in London, Joseph worked as a screenwriter and actor in various plays, ‎but the production about the rescue of the Bulgarian Jews is the ‎first dedicated to an episode of Bulgarian history, in which he acted as part of ‎the independent theatre company "Out of the Forest". The company has staged ‎another two plays dedicated to current issues related to politics and feminism ‎today.‎

An important fragment of the play created by the Englishman is related to the ‎efforts that the Bulgarian monarch Boris III, the Bulgarian government and the ‎Bulgarian Orthodox Church made to save the Jews who, after 1940, were in ‎the territory of the Kingdom of Bulgaria. ‎

One of the books that inspired Joseph when working on the play was Crown ‎of Thorns by the Bulgarian writer Stefan Gruev - son of the chief of the ‎cabinet at that time and one of the Tsar's most trusted people - Pavel Gruev. He ‎received it from his friend Sasha Wilson, co-writer of the play. ‎

‎“For her this play is part of reconnecting, finding a connection with a culture ‎she is very much from and of, but she has never lived in. But these stories from ‎Bulgaria she’s been surround by her whole life. Bulgaria for her is a faraway ‎distant fairytale land," Joseph shared in an interview with Radio Bulgaria.‎

In addition to "Crown of Thorns", Joseph and Sasha also read Michael Bar-‎Zohar's book entitled Beyond Hitler's Grasp, and later the autobiography of ‎Tsar Simeon II - An Extraordinary Destiny, from which they get information ‎about the events after 1943 and the death of Tsar Boris III - the moment in ‎which the play ends.‎

Music plays an important role in the construction of the play and is based on ‎both Bulgarian and Jewish folk songs. However, the actors and cast are ‎positive that they are telling a Bulgarian story that happened as an example of ‎how you can oppose the Holocaust. ‎

Since it is impossible for the actors to reincarnate into all the personalities who ‎contributed to the rescue of the Bulgarian Jews from the "death camps", the ‎script requires that one of them be the personification of an entire class:‎

‎"In our play we have a character called Metropolitan Stefan (Metropolitan of ‎Sofia from 1922 to 1948 and Exarch of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church from ‎‎1945 to 1948, was an opponent of the anti-Semitic laws introduced in our ‎country and is one of the people who prevented a from the deportations of ‎Jews from the territories of the Kingdom of Bulgaria - author's note). There ‎were many other religious figures who at the time were very important. When ‎we are theatrically telling a story, it is impossible to include the hundreds of ‎people who are in any way related. We had to try and encapsulate the role of ‎the Bulgarian Orthodox Church into one figure, not mentioning other rabbis, ‎other metropolitans."‎

The actor playing the part of Tsar Boris III knows that in addition to the heroic ‎story of saving nearly 50,000 human lives, there is also another one - a tragic ‎one that affects the memory of 11,343 Jews who lived on the territory of ‎Macedonia and Aegean Thrace (newly annexed territories to the Kingdom of ‎Bulgaria during the Second World War, in which the Bulgarian authorities ‎introduce Bulgarian legislation, but do not have the authority to make ‎completely independent decisions. They are made after coordination with ‎Germany).

However, Joseph is adamant that it is extremely important to ‎remember events such as the rescue of Bulgarian Jews because we mostly ‎honour the loss, not moments like this when people stood up to the inhumane ‎policies of a foreign dictator at risk for their own lives.‎

The play also brings back to life another significant historical figure who ‎played a role in saving the Bulgarian Jews – then-Prime Minister Bogdan ‎Filov:‎

‎"It's difficult sometimes as an actor to play figures who made the decision they ‎had to make because of course we can tell stories in lots of different ways. We ‎are thinking how we are going to stake this theatrically while also remaining as ‎accurate as possible to the history. During the play, we also try to make some ‎clarifications - why the action is developing as it is and what is to come."‎

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Photos: outoftheforesttheatre.com

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At the Edinburgh International Theatre Festival‎:

An English play tells about the rescue of the Bulgarian Jews

Joseph Cullen: It is important to remember the rescue of Bulgarian Jews as an ‎example of opposition to the Holocaust

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