PETAR MILOSHEVSKI
The Gospel Of BIBI
International Theatre Festival MOT | Skopje, Macedonia
1. "Perform for me! Play a role for me! "- The Master, to BIBI
In "The Passion according to BIBI", the audience cannot avoid confronting its own isolation. In this project, which features the author, who is also behind the light, music and stage design, Petar Miloshevski manages to create a complex overview of today's pain and sickness in less than an hour.
In a world where people are becoming more distant, they forget how to offer their bodies to others. Physical intimacy becomes too intimate. BIBI is the future of sex - an intelligent robot that can cook, clean and look after your home. BIBI knows how to conduct any conversation, as well as recite by heart Shakespeare, Bergman, Chekhov. Most importantly, BIBI will have sex with you whenever you want.
This is how the relationship between BIBI and BIBI's Master roughly looks like: BIBI serves and serves when needed. The thing that BIBI's manufacturers did not expect is that BIBI's intelligence will slowly start to build feelings. BIBI begins to take care of its master, his fate, the fact that he has feelings at all. "I felt his skin for real!" - says BIBI of its master. This is the first thread in the story by Miloshevski, which speaks of the dangers of dependence on modern appliances and the unexpected consequences of their careless use. By doing human things, BIBI acquires human characteristics.
2. "Not one thing, or the other." - BIBI, about itself
The second narrative was built around BIBI's deliberate androgynous appearance, a robot, played by a man, with female gender attributes, reinforced by a cutting-edge costume design (Antonella Petracarro). This approach to BIBI's physical appearance and demeanour allows Miloshevski to tell at the same time of the increased fluidity of gender and gender roles. BIBI is not "she" or "he", but "it". BIBI is "it", not because of the fact that it is an object, but because of the fact that there is no precise gender identity. There is no doubt that BIBI is a person. Miloshevski lends the character such force of emotion, in contrast to the precise, mechanical manners of the wind-up doll. He imparts an immaculate diction and weight with every word. The soundtrack gives further colour to the character. This is most striking at the zenith of action, when growing tension culminates in an unexpected but very appropriate musical crescendo.
3. "I am not what I am anymore." - BIBI, to us
The third, perhaps secretly underlying, yet present-day narrative is that of modern loneliness. Miloshevski likes to talk about modern technology, about changes on the horizon. But going even further, he introduces a dark mirror into the play through which the audience should see themselves. To see and face one’s isolation and the concealment of one's own empathy. Today's online life shortens the distance, but it clouds the closeness. Breeded with the instant pleasures of the age, people lose the motivation to invest in themselves and in others. Digital rewards and praise come cheap - a fast food for the soul, and "more expensive" pleasures suddenly do not have the same taste. Miloshevski asks what is the real price for these changes.
Is it that BIBI begins to develop feelings, or are we the ones facing the loss of our own? When the man-like becomes more vivid than man himself, the answer is clear. I warmly recommend.
Atanas Dimitrov