We sat down with the guys from Out of The Forest Theatre to discuss their latest show, The Brief Life and Mysterious Death of Boris III King of Bulgaria, which will be at Norwich Theatre Playhouse between 21 and 22 October. We talked about the show, being history nerds, and using music to tell a story.
Hello, can you tell us a little about you?
Out Of The Forest Theatre is a multi-award-winning ensemble-driven company of actor-musicians, theatre makers and storytellers. Co-writer Sasha Wilson is Bulgarian-American, Joseph Cullen is from the West Country, and Company Producer Claire Gilbert is from Essex. Together, we take misremembered or forgotten stories from history, set them to folk music, and use them as a lens to better understand today. Irreverently presented, knee-slapping, historical theatre with a modern revisionist twist.
Tell us about the show.
Bulgaria, 1943. Nearly 50,000 Jewish people were spared from deportation and death, despite the presence of Nazis in Sofia. Oh – and then the King dies, and the Communists move in… but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
Baddies on all sides and goodies in extraordinary places – this is a story that wrestles with the grey area of history and a flawed protagonist. It is a story that asks the audience the question: what choice would you make if you were put in an impossible position? Who did right? Who did wrong? Who delayed? Who won? All of this is set to a vibrant array of beguiling live music and traditional Bulgarian and Jewish folk songs.
Can you describe the show in three words?
Comedy, Tragedy, ‘Neutrality’?
What made you pick this story to explore?
We are history nerds. And we thought we knew everything about WWII. We had never heard this story, and we were excited by the idea of exploring Bulgaria’s history, politics, music and culture. The parallels between events in 1940s Europe and what we are seeing today around the world are evident. We know the role of Churchill and Great Britain, but what about Boris and Bulgaria? There are heroes across the continent, and we knew we couldn’t leave this story alone. At its heart is a human story and a series of difficult decisions – it is relatable, despite its scale.
Why is it important to tell and explore stories like this one?
Often, we ask ourselves – what can we do to help? We felt it was important to share this complicated grey area of history – the good, the bad, and the we-aren’t-so-sure-what-happeneds – the failings of those in power and the success of the extraordinary ordinary people across Bulgaria. We ask our audience – what would you do? And we hope that this story inspires people to think about their neighbours and their immediate community and how they may stand up and do the right thing when the time comes. We have had the great privilege of being invited to an ‘Acting For The Future’ Holocaust Conference organised by TOLI and The American University in Blagoevgrad (AUBG), and we continue to explore the relationship this story has to studying and teaching the Holocaust. Alongside the show, we are growing our education branch, and we hope we can connect with GCSE/A Level syllabuses to offer the unique perspective of Bulgaria and Boris III.
Where do you get your ideas from?
It seems we tend to find our stories nestled somewhere in our family backgrounds. Geography plays a large part. Our first show was Off West End Award-Winning ‘Bury The Hatchet’, about Lizzie Borden, the alleged axe-murderess from Fall River, Massachusetts. ‘Call Me Fury’ was a response piece to Arthur Miller’s ‘The Crucible’, centring female narratives from Salem, Massachusetts, and around the world. Both of these plays were written by Sasha Wilson, who grew up in Lexington, near Boston. This show is clearly inspired by Sasha’s family background on her mum’s side – her O’papa (grandad) being from Tserklevsi, near Sofia. We reference in the show that students across the country were awarded extra grades in their exams when Prince Simeon was born – Sasha’s Opapa was one of them!
There is music throughout your piece. Can you tell us a bit about the music?
Yes! So music features prominently in our shows. We consider them plays with music rather than musicals. Our characters don’t sing their feelings, but we use music to set tone/period/style and help us move from moment to moment, create tension in a scene or punctuate a beat. Fundamentally, it is the bedrock on which we build the world of the play. We will use a different musical genre for each production and repurpose and arrange the chosen songs to underscore scenes. We have an Associate Artist, David Leopold, who is a singer-songwriter, and he expertly takes the lead on arrangements during the rehearsal process. For this show, we also worked closely with Dessi Stefanova, who runs the London Bulgarian Choir; she taught us how to sing ‘Mila Rodino’ (the National Anthem) and ‘Kaval Sviri’. Our director/dramaturg, Hannah Hauer-King, also brought two Jewish songs into the show, and we decided as an ensemble what worked and what didn’t. In this show, our actors play guitar, mandolin, violin and flute.
This season, we are exploring kindness through creativity. How do you use your craft to exercise kindness to yourself and others?
At the end of the day, theatre exists to spark compassion and empathy in the audience. It is to put the audience into the shoes of a character completely distinct from them but one that hopefully allows them to connect to their own feelings about a situation or a topic. And fingers crossed, if the play is truly great, the audience will feel a sense of catharsis, of having allowed the feelings to pass through them and touch their heart so they are in some small tiny, infinitesimal way changed by what they have seen.
As a company, we are really interested in engaging with other people’s experiences, and we hope that we do this within our own process and for our own team. We can always do more to understand each other and communicate more effectively, and we think it’s important that we hold ourselves to account as a company and as people. Behind-the-scenes, we try to debrief as often as possible and include as many people as we can, as often as we can.
On-stage – our style of storytelling is such that we break the fourth wall and engage directly with our audience. Don’t worry – you don’t have to do anything! But we will talk to you, and Boris may shake your hand because you are ‘his people’ (as it were). Our ensemble of actor-musicians begins the show, explaining to the audience where and when we are and exactly what we are going to tell you. If something is a flourish of the ‘dramatic license’ (by which I mean – made history), then we let the audience know. The printed copies of our playtext (which are available for purchase through our website and indeed in the foyer after the show, should this interview inspire you to attend!) include additional footnotes and a bibliography for the fellow nerds out there!
We think accessibility extends to include academic and information access – and we want to continue to tell this story in as many formats as possible to encourage people to ‘pass it on’.
The Brief Life and Mysterious Death of Boris III King of Bulgaria is at Norwich Theatre Playhouse between 21 – 22 Oct. For more information and book, visit norwichtheatre.org or call the Box Office on 01603 630 000.
