Posledniot maž, poslednata žena (The Last Man, the Last Woman): The tragic accord of conspiracies against freedom
Posledniot maž, poslednata žena is a production of the newly establishe dtheatre Planeta and the Ephemeride group from Rouen, France. The play was written by Jordan Plevneš, directed by Dimitar Stankovski, and the music was written by Venko Serafimov. The play has its worthy CV: it was prepared in the late night times at Dramski Theatre in Skopje, its opening night was in Rouen in April last year, it was also shown in Paris, it was seen and will be seen by the audience on several tours outside the country, it was the participant of the last year’s festival of chamber theatres “Risto Šiškov” in Strumica; the actor Vasil Zafirčev won the only festival award, it was played once in Skopje, as part of the Young Open Theatre 2005, at the Youth Cultural Centre. But, as the other projects created outside the institutional theatre, it has a problem with the space in which the authors and the audience would meet regularly. Nobody wants it.
Nevertheless, it is a play that provokes, and therefore it deserves more frequent showing. And something more: the same text as a Macedonian-French co-production, between Dramski Theatre in Skopje Theatre de la Oprime in Paris was also not lucky – it ended after the opening nights in Paris on 11 May 2001, with the two Dramski Theatre actors – Gordana Endrovska and Branko Gjorčev, and on 12 May with the French actors Stephanie Laniere and Raphael Dolche. Although it was planned, it was not played in Skopje. Nobody wanted it.
Plevneš has continued paining events and persons that ask questions about these times, exposed to various terrors. This is done with broad moves that are revealed in the idea of humanity at a global level. It is about the last man, regardless whether it is a woman or a man, and it is the last because he is at the last stage of humanity. Both of them are the last creatures of this world that is not exemplary, closed, and they desperately try to keep the remains of humanity in their mad project that will take them to the absolutely eternal truth – love. The play has the subtitle International Conspiracy in 100 Images with a Prologue and an Epilogue, and Plevneš explains his characters in this way: Last Man – actor interventionist, player and speaker; and the Last Woman – teacher, admirer and environmentalist.
The director Stankovski skillfully gives over the stage to Saška Dimitrovska and Vasil Zafirčev. Merged in a love dance, they create a view of now and the future. The concept is clear: the idea of the ethical side of the society that will be pro-human and not anti-human is promoted. The tragic accord of the two characters is precisely placed by Stankovski in the play of Zafirčev and Dimitrovska. As a strongly expressed irony on life in a world where the consequences of the conspiracy against man are paid. The characters fight their battle via their fear of world terror knowing that they lose it at the moment, and hoping that they will win the war.
Vasil Zafirčev as the Last Man follows the last desperate staging of the vision for the free spirit. The time on stage is the time of flying and fall of a disoriented intellectual. Saška Dimitrovska as the Last Woman is seen as the embryo of something first, as the opposite of the last. Or as the beginning. Her play also opens the question: what was the first woman like? It also shows that her love is alike a bridge that helps the Last Man see his visions of free spirit.
Via the associative game with feelings that look for the present in the future (after the significant cutting of the text) and with the music of Serafimov as the third partner in the action, Zafirčev and Dimitrovska build a world with temporal and spatial moves, secure in themselves and in what they have created with Stankovski. This play draws in the viewer as well. The magic lasts, the tragic accord of the conspiracy against the freedom echoes, and there is an answer as well: the characters that Plevneš names memorials, play several characters in their counter-conspiracy, to eventually become united in their message against the chaos in the world in which they were dipped by somebody else, some other interests.