Ohrid Summer Festival continues its programme tonight with NI Drama Theatre from Skopje and the theatre play “The Curios Incident of the Dog in the Night Time” by Simon Stephens, directed by Zoja Buzalkovska.
The play will take place at the Centre of Culture “Grigor Prlichev” at 9 p.m. It stars Damjan Cvetanoski, Trajanka Ilieva – Taci, Aleksandar Stepanuleski, Emilija Micevska Trajkovikj, Sonja Stamboldzioska, Jasmina Vasileva, Filip Trajkovikj, Stefan Vujsikj, Zlatko Mitreski and Nela Pavlovska.
The drama text “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” by Simon Stevens is an adaptation of the novel with the same name by Mark Haddon from 2003 which has won 17 prestigious awards including the Whitbread Award. The adaptation is written in 2012 and successfully premiered at the National Theatre in London. The story takes place in Swindon and London, and it revolves round the 15-year-old Christopher John Francis Boone, a mathematics genius with behavioural issues on the autistic spectrum. Christopher needs to solve a mystery. Someone has killed the neighbour’s dog and Christopher was initially arrested but later released. In his attempt to find the killer, and going against his father’s advice, Christopher starts his own investigation asking questions and writing the answers in a notebook.
The play works with the original material in depth. Instead of telling the story in first person, the dramatic text brings a combination of relationships and different angles of the story seen both from Christopher’s point of view, but also from the point of view of all those who come in contact with his book or are part of it- his teacher, his father, his mother. The result is a drama within a drama.
According to the director Zoja Buzalkovska, what makes “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” an exciting working material is the theme this text reveals.
– That is the world of Cristopher, the world of the “special”, “different”, “excluded”, “mocked”, “underestimated”. In times when many societies, just as ours, fight for inclusion of people with special needs, working such a contemporary material is very important, – says the director Buzalkovska.
In that sense, the play will have an educational role and as one of the target groups has the teenagers. On the other hand, the genre of black comedy and sometimes the cruelly sharp, although very funny language, settle it in the evening hours and complicate its role.
– The story is being told with a film language, but dynamically. Situations change very quickly, very complex themes and questions are being worked on, in a very fun and sometimes humorous manner. It is always a challenge to turn into a theatre such structure, reveals Buzalkovska.
Zoja Buzalkovska (Skopje, 1971) is a theatre director and professor of acting and theatre direction at the Faculty for dramatic arts in Skopje. In 1997 she graduates from the department of Journalism at the Faculty for Law in Skopje, following to graduate theatre directing at the Faculty for drama the next year. In 2010 she earns her masters in culture studies, and the following year she adds the master’s degree in theatre direction to her name. Since 2000 she has been assisting and going on to earn further teaching titles at the Faculty for drama in Skopje in the class of prof. Kiril Ristoski. Today, Zoja Buzalkovska is a regular professor at this faculty leading a class of aspiring actors and a class of theatre directors. She has directed in all relevant theatres in North Macedonia and has also done productions for and independent theatre projects.
The theatre play “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” lasts 2 hours and 45 minutes and is aimed for audiences above 12 years of age.
