Five international troupes participate in Butrint Theatre Festival

TIRANA, July 11 – Five international theatre companies from the United States, Italy, Spain, Bulgaria and Ukraine will be participating in the 12 edition of the Butrint International Theatre Festival which returns to the UNESCO World Heritage site of Butrint from July 18 to 23 after a two-year absence. Albania and Kosovo which were expected to participate with Oedipus the King, an ancient Greek tragedy staged last March by the Tirana and Prishtina national theatres, are not participating in the event for unknown reasons.
Alfred Bualoti, the festival’s director, says the event will kick off on July 18 with the Bulgarian troupe, to continue with the Madrid theatre which is staging “The House of Bernarda Alba.” American director John Blondell who recently staged Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” is bringing another Shakespare part this time “The Tempest.” The Kiev theatre will be participating with a love story while Italy with a performance by the Bergamo street theatre.
“I would like to guarantee you that the performances in Butrint will be of high quality. The troupes were selected out of 20 to 25 theatre companies from all over the world. Of course, if we had a bigger budget, there would be greater performances,” says Bualoti
The festival’s director says that despite the delays, modest budget and the unpleasant electoral campaign atmosphere they are happy that the 12th edition of the Butrint international festival is finally back after a two-year absence.
The Culture Ministry has supported the festival with only 4 million lek (around Euro 28,000), which is only a quarter of the festival’s best budget of 12 million lek when nine troupes were invited to perform.
“The financial support is tragicomic but despite this we will do our best. The elections atmosphere is not very favourable but we will bring post-electoral entertainment to tourists,” says Bualoti.
In its latest edition in 2010, the Butrint festival brought together troupes from Russia, Macedonia, Poland, Hungary, Romania, and Albania.
Butrint 2000 is an annual theatre festival that takes place on a historic site in the South- Albanian town of Butrinti, on the shore of Lake Butrint. The festival started in 2000 and has presented works by Albanian artists, as well as more than 50 companies coming from Greece, Italy, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Serbia and Montenegro, Poland, Romania, the Netherlands, UK, USA, France, Russia, Sweden etc. 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.