Our story is a lost chapter of the Bible. The room on the stage is a piece of heaven God gave to a man and a woman to be happy, to live together, to procreate. Then God disappears. And when He looks at them, after a while has passed, he sees a man and a woman who do not have any children, whose love faded, who live like dogs. And then, He sends an instigator, a man to stir up their existence. He is Vova, the idiot, a sick man, but one who could save them. He becomes a part in the life of this family, and because the laws of the universe and of life say that good has to give birth to good and persist in good, the wife, just like Eve, just like the primordial woman, seduces this young man, the messenger of God, and he puts inside her the seed of life. It seems like the string of our story has changed direction and hope comes along. The wife becomes pregnant and a child is a chance for evolution of the human race. But she, the earthly being, kills this fetus. It is a catastrophe for the one who sent the child and it is in that moment that the law of the echo becomes valid, and everything comes crashing down. The woman is devastated, for her existence has lost its purpose; it becomes a common human existence, and the man, instead of living with the woman, he loves another man, thus altering the course of life... But the law of destruction continues to apply. Vova disappears, the messenger of God leaves, and the husband ends up in a mental hospital. Here, the things take another turn. The man is not believed. Here is what he is told: Vova never existed, you imagined it all, you killed your wife... It is a horrendous story about the history of humankind. A modern situation in modern words and with a modern direction.

(Andriy Zholdak)

       Performance had been presented in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Romania, Russia, Finland and next touring to Japan.

Dramatic Script                         Andriy Zholdak

Translation and Adaptation          Maria Dinescu

Direction and light design           Andriy Zholdak

Scenography                            Andriy Zholdak and Tita Dimova

Costumes                                Tita Dimova

Actors

Florin Coşuleţ, Cătălin Pătru, Cristina Flutur, Cristian Stanca, Ema Veţean, Pali Vecsei, Mihai Coman, Viorel Raţă, , Bogdan Sărătean, Codruţa Vasiu

             Life with Idiot is a shocking allegory of human history. It portrays a severe, uncompromising world, in which humnas victims of their own human nature. Events unford simultaneously on a number of different levels, and they are led and outlined by multi-dimensional music. Life beats on the stage like a nightmare in which beauty becomes ugly, heat becomes cold, love becomes hate, affection becomes violence and paradise becomes Hell.

            Skin breathes, sighs and screams on video monitor. Details come close and images cling to the retina. The hammering rock beat hits under your skin until it suddenly relaxed and goes quiet. A moment in quiet waters, a moment of peace. The pace of events is breathtaking, and the performance does not avoid brutally as it strives to reveal the himan heart.

-       I have a philosophical understanding of theatre, says the director – We fall silent bout so many issues, and I want to open up, surprise ans schock. I want to touch people, touch their hearts. Only then does theatre have a real significance.

Press reviews

ROMANIA LIBERA (national newspaper), March 2007

Hallucinogenic - by Mihaela Michailov

Zholdak cannon launches heavy artillery. „Life with an Idiot” after the text of Viktor Erofeev, author that writes visual organically, imaginary exploded just as Andriy Zholdak likes, is a concert performance. Cameramen that film all that happens on stage, live music sang by an angel crucified by demons that echo malefic-innocent and look perverse, with a visionary orchestration that electrocutes. Hallucinogenic like an overdose that overexcites all nervous centres and alienated beyond the bearable limit,„Life with an Idiot” is the absolute performance. The emotion combustion brings the actors close to the audience in a „butcher's shop” of senses that, at the same time, has an amazing poetry.

CULTURA (national magazine), March 2007

 Zholdak makes a Hit! Psychosis Paroxysms on the Sibiu Stage - by Teodora Gheorghiu

„Life with an Idiot” can be seen as a Big Brother of theatre art, where even the cameras that catch the action are turned into characters. Life performance surprised by Zholdak is built on stages, dynamic, not giving the audience even a moment’s break. The theatre performance „Life with an Idiot” can only be seen by people of character. The weak-spirited cannot bear the truth exposed right in their faces. This is also a performance that „cures” the snob that come to the theatre just as it is an appropriate thing to do in the society. The harsh language, the grotesque images presented in high speed on the three screens on the stage, the harsh, loud music of Remmstein leads to panic attacks, psychosis that you would like to distance from but you still wish to keep these feelings only to see what comes next. The entire performance is spiced with just as terrifying images from well known movies by their violence, such as „Natural Born Killer”, „King Kong” or „Kill Bill”. All scenes are marked by a sharp sound of a guillotine that increases the performance schizophrenia.