Goodbye, Lindita Show Program
Goodbye, Lindita Show Program content
Theatre | Australian Premiere
Goodbye, Lindita
Mario Banushi
Dates: 29 Feb - 3 Mar 2024
Venue: Dunstan Playhouse, Adelaide Festival Centre
Duration: 1hr 10mins, no interval
Warnings: Contains nudity, theatrical smoke and smoking on stage (e-cigarette). Recommended for audiences 16+
Note: Latecomers will not be admitted
Contents
Credits
About the Show
A Note from the Director
About Mario Banushi
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Credits
Original Concept & Director
Mario Banushi
Dramaturgy
Sophia Eftychiadou
Sets & Costumes
Sotiris Melanos
Music
Emmanouel Rovithis
Lighting
Tasos Palaioroutas
House Dramaturg
Aspasia-Maria Alexiou
Directing Assistants
Afroditi Kapokaki
Theodora Patiti
Cast (in alphabetical order)
Mario Banushi
Babis Galiatsatos
Alexandra Hasani
Erifyli Kitzoglou
Katerina Kristo
Helene Habia Nzanga
Eftychia Stefanou
Chryssi Vidalaki
About the Show
Goodbye, Lindita is a poetic farewell, a visual meditation on mourning. A family experiences grief in a muted, wordless manner, stupefied by their loss, until a series of uncanny events seems to suspend the boundaries between their world and that of the departed Lindita. Throughout the action the icon of a Madonna Nera is overlooking the proceedings and a Black woman frequents the house. Trivial house chores are followed by poetic images and rituals originating from Balkan traditions.
In the complete absence of dialogue, we witness a journey, an attempt to answer a question that is as old as humanity: how can we reconcile ourselves with death? In Goodbye, Lindita the end is also a beginning and the love shared an eternal sanctuary.
At Bitef festival Goodbye, Lindita was awarded the Bitef Special Award, the “Jovan Ćirilov”, for outstanding contribution to theatre art and the Politika Award for best director.
Learning to Say Goodbye
A Note from the Director
Goodbye, Lindita is the second part of a trilogy. The first part, RAGADA, was the first performance I have directed for the theatre. An image was the driving force for that work: my mother trying to give birth to me. In Goodbye, Lindita the first image that came to my mind was based on a recent memory: my dead step-mother, ornamented with flowers, more beautiful than ever, surrounded by people saying goodbye. After three days, my father died.
RAGADA centered around the notion of ‘coming’, Goodbye, Lindita is about how to say goodbye to a loved one, whereas my next performance will be about absence.
I feel that mourning has a silent, almost suffocating quality, where words are absent or do not really mean anything. This is why this is a performance without words. A family that has lost a loved one copes with life just after (the traumatic event) or maybe they try to re-live past memories. It seems that they all open up an album of old photos and create a rite of passage both for those who mourn and for Lindita who has to depart.
Is it possible for a performance that has as a starting point the death of two most beloved ones to reach rebirth and peace beyond the darkness of the final fairwell? This is what I have tried. Maybe because I do not wish to stop being a romantic.
The performance is dedicated to Lindita and Skender.
Mario Banushi
About Mario Banushi
Mario Banushi
Original Concept & Director
Mario Banushi (b. 1998) grew up in Albania before relocating to Athens, where he studied acting at the Athens Conservatoire Drama School. During his studies he collaborated with Euripides Laskaridis as production assistant in the performance THIRÍO (Athens Biennale 2018). After his graduation (2020) he directed the short film PRANVERA (TIFF 2021) and participated as an actor in the performances Marcel Duchamp (2022) by Nova Melancholia and City Lights (2022) directed by Amalia Bennett. An extract of his first performance RAGADA was presented at the exhibition Performance Rooms 2022 (Kappatos Gallery). The complete version was staged at Theatro sti Sala (Theatre in the Living Room).
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