TIRANA, July 6 – Chinese, Greek, Georgian and Albanian theatrical companies will be performing in the 15th edition of Butrint international theatres festival at the landmark Roman amphitheater of the UNESCO World Heritage site of Butrint, southernmost Albania.
All three foreign companies will stage Shakespeare pieces while Albania will be represented with a dance theatre and an Albanian drama performance.
The festival will kick off on July 13 with a documentary on the country’s most important theatre festival and its 15-year journey, followed by a string orchestra concert directed by Albania’s Ermir Dizdari.
The Albanian Dance Theater Company will be the first to perform on the Butrint stage staging Eugene Ionesco’s Bald Soprano with a new concept and choreography by Albania’s Gjergj Prevazi.
Athens-based Thesis Theatre Company will perform Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream.’ China’s National Theatre has selected Shakespeare’s Richard III which will be the festival’s closing piece on July 19.
The Migjeni Theatre in the northern Albanian city of Shkodra is participating with the “Kanarina Blu” (Blue Canary) a piece written and directed by Stefan à‡apaliku.
This year’s novelty is the participation of Tbilisi’s Nodar Dumbadze Professional State Youth Theatre which is set to become the first Georgian troupe to perform at the Butrint Theatre Festival. The Georgian company will perform Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing.
Alfred Buaoloti’s the festival’s founder and director says that in its 15 editions the festival has been a key cultural event also serving tourism by promoting the country as a destination among theatrical companies around the world.
The festival comes at a time when the town of Saranda, some 20 km from Butrint, is at the peak of its tourist season.
The Butrint 2000 is an annual theatre festival that takes place on a historic site in the ancient Albanian town of Butrinti, on the shore of Lake Butrint. The festival was launched 17 years ago and has since presented works by Albanian artists, as well as more than 50 European and American companies. The festival is also an initiative to promote cultural tourism in Albania, and Butrint, the largest Albanian archeological park, which has been under UNESCO protection since the early 1990s after the collapse of communist regime.
Inhabited since prehistoric times, Butrint has been the site of a Greek colony, a Roman city and a bishopric. Following a period of prosperity under Byzantine administration, then a brief occupation by the Venetians, the city was abandoned in the late middle Ages after marshes formed in the area. The present archaeological site is a repository of ruins representing each period in the city’s development.
Excavations have brought to light many objects – plates, vases, ceramic candlesticks – as well as sculptures including a remarkable ‘Goddess of Butrint’ which seems to completely embody, in the perfection of its features, the Greek ideal of physical beauty.
