What is all that we need? The most popular answer has been given by the Beatles song All You Need Is Love. Yes, everybody dreams of loving and being loved but sometimes one is surprised that this is exactly that one has wanted. This is the case with the protagonist of the play All You Need Is the director Georgi Mihalkov has staged based on texts by Gabriel Barylli, Victor Pelevin and Georges Hulgar. It tells of a well-to-do man whose marriage has crushed and so he has stopped searching for the Great Love and looks for paid love. To his surprise he finds out that the prostitute he has visited is behaving in an unorthodox way. First she earns his respect with her self-confidence, and then she tells him that she is ready to anything for him. It turns out, however, that what he wants from her is mostly to withstand the streams of words erupting from his mouth that drag him down into a whirlpool of memories about short-lived triumphs, pains, disappointments, self-flagellations and boasts. The actor Phillip Avramov recites his monologues with passion that only occasionally touches the woman by his side. She, however, never forgets that she has to do her job as a priestess of paid love. Iva Karamancheva’s role is complex because she has a few lines but her presence is just as tangible as the one of the man indulged in verbal fireworks. At certain moments she is just an echo of what the man says, and in the next moment she subdues him with the force of her silent female radiance. The play contains sex scenes but they are so esthetic and conventional that they don’t fail good taste. It’s just implied erotic, not pornography. Differing from many other theatrical plots, in this one the happy end is totally unexpected. The director Georgi Mihalkov says that the play is always different because he has granted to both actors the liberty to improvise. Iva and Phillip perform All You Need Is in Sofia and other Bulgarian cities and towns.

Source: www.evropaworld.eu