A family gathers around an inanimate body. They are mourning, in silence, the death of a loved one. Through striking visuals evoking Balkan rituals and Christian iconography, Mario Banushi brings a strong dose of sacredness into the domestic space, transforming every gesture. Following “Mami,” presented in Athens in July 2023, the young Albanian director, awarded the Silver Lion at the Venice Biennale, presents his latest creation, “Goodbye Lindita.”
The critics’ feedback on “Goodbye Lindita”
Vincent Bouquet: “It’s a theater of images, that is, without words while being extremely expressive. It’s a theater of transmission, with an underground exchange between the audience and the performers. I found Goodbye Lindita very impressive, even though, as it is an earlier work by Mario Banushi, it may be more embryonic, less at the peak of its power than in Mami.”
Victor Inisan: “Banushi himself goes to the stage. He comes to pick up the dead woman in his arms and stays for a while in his own setting. The costumes of the play are traditional Albanian costumes. Banushi, on the other hand, is dressed as in real life. And at one point, he takes a picture of the scene. There is this aspect of theater as the capture of a fleeting moment, an echo of representation, which is destructible, etc. And we accept all of that, it works.”
More information
“Goodbye Lindita” by Mario Banushi, from March 28 to April 5 at Berthier.
Audio excerpts
Excerpt from “Goodbye Lindita” by Mario Banushi.
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