Silva Marinova / Tatjana Motta

The first day of the transnational MEDUSA Festival in Berlin begins with a journey into our own inner world. Whether on an epic tour through a single night or a trip to the Moon in the style of a science-fiction comic – the protagonists created by Bulgarian writer Silva Marinova and Italian writer Tatjana Motta are forced to come to terms with experiences of feeling like an outsider and of belonging.

ДЕБЕЛАКЪТ (FETTSACK) by Silva Marinova, translated by Alexander Sitzmann

A science-fiction play about body consciousness, grief and loss, relationships and the societal pressure to change. In the year 2125, Paul, a writer who weighs 240 kg, is travelling to a weight-loss clinic on the Moon in a space capsule with his wife. In conversations with their friends and relatives on Earth, and with a pushy AI on board, the couple are forced to confront a repressed tragedy and the expectations of other people.

Notte Bianca (Lange Nacht) by Tatjana Motta, translated by Henrieke Markert

Against the backdrop of a city that seems both inviting and threatening, on the boundary between the centre and the outskirts, a tourist couple finds out what it means to belong – and what happens when you are forced to construct belonging. A play about migration and passing through, about reinvention, social stereotypes and the search for a place to call home.

Read by Eddy Barroso, Barbara Behrendt, Anton Berman, Aylin Esener
Directed by Marie Bues

Followed by an audience discussion with the playwright Silva Marinova and the translator Henrieke Markert.

More events at the MEDUSA Festival Berlin

Marie Bues, born in 1980, is a director and served as artistic director of the Theater Rampe Stuttgart alongside Martina Grohmann from 2013 to 2021. Since the 2023/24 season, she has been a member of the artistic direction team at Schauspielhaus Wien. As a freelance director, since 2007 she has staged productions at theatres and festivals including the Theater Basel, Staatstheater Kassel, Thalia Theater Hamburg, Schauspielhaus Graz, Schauspiel Köln, Kunstfest Weimar, Staatstheater Hannover, Schauspielhaus Düsseldorf and many more. Marie Bues’ work consistently focuses on new writing and she collaborates closely with authors. She teaches directing at the ADK Ludwigsburg.

Henrieke Markert studied Italian and Comparative Literature in Dresden and Trento. She has been working as a literary translator, surtitler and interpreter for German, Italian and English since 2015, and has been awarded several scholarships. Her translation of the queer play Rhizome by Emanuele Giorgetti and Eliana Rotella won the Audience Award at the Stücke-Fest at the Landestheater Niederösterreich.

Silva Marinova is a Bulgarian visual artist and author who has trained in painting, book art and photography. She works in the areas of painting, applied arts, illustration, comics, children’s literature, prose and drama. Since completing her degree in publishing in 2017, she has been writing mainly fantasy and science fiction. Her work has been published in literary journals and anthologies, and she won first prize in the 2019 Agop Melkonyan Short Story Competition.

Tatjana Motta studied Fine Arts and Theatre at the IUAV University in Venice and Scriptwriting at the Civica Scuola di Teatro Paolo Grassi in Milan. Lange Nacht (Notte Bianca) was awarded the 55th Premio Riccione and has been translated and performed in the United States, Spain, France and Portugal. Her work has been staged at the Romaeuropa Festival, the Emilia Romagna Teatro Fondazione, the Teatro Stabile di Bolzano and the Teatro i. She also writes screenplays and lives in Rome

Alexander Sitzmann studied Scandinavian and Slavic Studies in Vienna. He now researches and teaches at the University of Vienna. He has worked as a literary translator specialising in poetry and theatre since 1999. Among other works, he has authored two monographs and a dictionary, and has edited several anthologies. In 2004, he was awarded the Honorary Prize by the Bulgarian Ministry of Culture; from 2007 to 2015 and from 2018 to 2025, he was the recipient of the Austrian Federal Ministry’s Translators’ Award; in 2016, he was awarded the Austrian State Prize for Literary Translation; and in 2020, he received the Brücke Berlin Theatre Prize.