VRAZHALETs (The FORTUNE TELLER)
A comedy by St. L. Kostoff
Performed by prisoners of the male prison of Lovech, Bulgaria
Director: Miroslav Yonkov
Staging: Tihomir Vitkov
Music: Kamen Nikolov
Actors: 12 prisoners
"VRAZHALETs" is a comedy that satirizes the pursuit of fast personal enrichment, greediness and naivety. 5t.
L. Kostoff's play is a story about the greedy however nice countrymen, who get deceived by an accomplished forger. The action is set a century ago, the subject matter of the play however is still topical.
In a pretty Bulgarian village there is tranquillity all around. The peasants know each other and their live is quite boring. It arrives however a fortune teller (a vrazhalets) who practices chiromancy and tells the future. He predicts, the nobles of the village, Danko, the mayor, and 5toyko, the priest, will achieve wealth. On the palm of the beautiful mayor's daughter the vrazhalets "sees" a lot of money coming from a young man. Then the vrazhalets has a good feed and drinks and disappears.
Priest's and mayor's powerful imagination reminds them that a young photograph living lavishly on his money arrived recently in the village. In the photographer's studio, called by implication "The Pyramid", they discover photographic plates and comprehend that Mantcho, the photographer prints forged banknotes. 50 they immediately decide they should press Mantcho to print money for them, too. Being unmasked, Mantcho wishes to surrender himself to the police; the priest and the mayor however stop him. Banknotes look like authentic ones, and the priest and the mayor dream for a new, glorious life. There is only one obstacle to overcome: Mantcho does not have enough paper so as to print the banknotes. They are forced to send him to Vienna.
The news soon gets about all around the village. Everybody wants to get rich. The priest and the mayor establish "a cooperation to manufacture forge banknotes". Young and old, erudite and unlettered - everybody want to joint in to the cooperation. Only the schoolmaster-viola player does not want to "dirty his hands". The shareholders elect a treasurer and deposit their savings.
They are glad that later they will receive 10 times more. Mantcho becomes a favourite among the countrymen and is everywhere welcomed like being Messiah. He even gets engaged to the daughter of the mayor, Bosilka.
Mantcho is sent to Vienna to buy paper with the money of the countrymen.
Bosilka makes a list of the presents she would like to get: new dresses, lipstick, and powder.
Everybody in the village is impatient to receive the big profit. Time however passes and there isn't any news from Mantcho. Tension among the copartners increases, they are assailed with doubts and start to exchange accusations. The old man Gotcho can not bear it any longer and applies to the authorities. Everybody gets afraid. The priest however, though panicked, remembers that they should hide the mould for banknotes.ln Mantcho's box however they only discover a piece of glass and a set of strange clothes well known to them. They understand Mantcho and the vrazhah~ts is one and the Will our characters manage to get off the trap of their own greediness? Will they fall into despair? Will they survive?
Our characters lay plans again: "Dabbling in politics! Why not? This could be our salvation"! They will write to the Parliament. They will visit ministers and ask for protection. With certainty, somebody will nderstand, they are decent people. They will advance in life and achieve wealth. They believe again they will succeed. That's the way their life goes on...
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