PETAR MILOSHEVSKI

THE FEAR WITHIN...

LOVE - review from BABEL International Performing Arts Festival Târgoviște, Romania

10/06/2016

As human beings we hardly succeed to be ourselves.  Our entire life is a struggle of expressing what our souls hide deep within. It is a long road that sometimes passes obstacles which seem impossible to overcome, because fear rushes through our blood from the very first moment we are born: the fear of existing, the fear of being abandoned, the fear of being conscious of all that surrounds us and not being able to give a proper response.

The last night show, LOVE, a show by & with Petar Miloshevski, was a great example of fighting with your own limitations. I honestly confess that the theme frightened me at the beginning. I was wondering what atrocities am I going to see on stage?... and I was ready to leave the theatre hall after 5 minutes, breaking the rule of the theatre professional who, despite all odds, has to be the last spectator standing. Main excuse was being tired after a whole week full of events and work to do. However, my expectations were completely turned upside down. The show started and I couldn’t take my eyes of the artist that was performing in front of us. I told my colleague: ‘The problem is that he is really good!’ in fact, it was not a problem at all, it was the joy that one hour performance will be a lesson of discovery, of confronting truths, an acting lesson, not a struggle of reaching the end of the story.

The subject was about eating another person out of too much love… literally speaking. Some weeks ago, I heard something completely randomly about internet conversation that start by having this purpose: one man who wants to eat another man that wishes to be eaten. The most concupiscent and atrocious way of making love. Petar played both roles, using just a costume trick and his infinite physical and facial flexibility. No other objects, only a chair helped him in developing the story. He smoked imaginary cigarettes and you could see their ash falling down, that was the accuracy of his movements. Nothing was too much, nothing was too less, everything he did was needed by the performance. The baroque music was giving dramatism to the story because the outlook of the artist on his characters seemed cynical and cold. No melodramatic trace occurred. These traces may be hard to be kept away, especially considering what it was about.

Two metaphors lift the entire performance to a higher level, giving a spiritual beautiful meaning to an impeccable acting technique: the butterfly and the image from the very end, which I won’t reveal.  Much more can be said about LOVE, but what we really have to know and recognise is that, LOVE is about Sacrifice. Furthermore, what Petar Miloshevski did was a sacrifice towards the spectators that watched him with astonished eyes.

Vera Ștefan