Author's Note for Marta Verina

Once, Goran Stefanovski, during a lecture, told us that theater is a distorted mirror of reality meant to highlight the things we want to tell the world. And the best way to do that is by stealing—from those who are better writers than us and from life itself. Marta Verina is a play where every single line is stolen from reality.

This is a play written through a keyhole; it shows us life behind closed doors, at times uncomfortably intimate in what it reveals. Its characters are people we all know, those we encounter daily, love, or hate. But they are not black and white—they encompass every shade of the spectrum, being at once terribly right and terribly wrong. This is a play in which characters strip away all the layers they’ve built to shield themselves from the harsh world and reveal themselves as we all are when we gather enough courage to look honestly into the distorted mirror that accentuates all our flaws.

Marta Verina is a play about people—about men, women, and children—and about how our actions affect those closest to us. But more than anything, it is a play about love. Inspired by the poetry of Aco Šopov, it establishes a connection that reminds us that people are always the same. Poems written over 50 years ago feel fresh and modern, uncovering the essence of these characters who exist here and now, and everywhere and always.

Through the words we all hear and say every day, Marta attempts to tell a story about the things we often cannot express—the moments in life when we are left speechless. Because, as Marta herself would say: “When people fall in love, fall out of love, and leave each other, it never has anything to do with words.”

Dragana Lukan Nikoloski