The Pillowman
07:30 pm, 07 – 09 Feb 2025
Manzi Exhibition Space
2 Ngõ Hàng Bún, Ba Đình, Hanoi
From the organizer:
The first production to launch New Backstage, directed by an emerging talent, Bui Thac Phong, is inspired by the play The Pillowman by the renowned British-Irish playwright & filmmaker Martin McDonagh.
Tác phẩm ‘Người gối’ do gương mặt trẻ đầy triển vọng Bùi Thạc Phong đạo diễn, được lấy cảm hứng từ kịch bản gốc The Pillowman nổi tiếng của đạo diễn, biên kịch xuất sắc người Ireland Martin McDonagh.
In a forest where the line between reality and illusion blurs, three children have gone missing. Two have been proven deceased, while the other’s fate is unknown. Katurian, a fairy tale writer who works in an animal slaughterhouse, becomes the prime suspect when the events in the crime cases are closely related to his writings. The conversation is interminable, alternating between four characters: two inspectors and two arrested. Six fairy stories entice, beguile, and reveal each character’s cover-ups, falsehoods, torments and consolations, pasts and traumas.
This version of ‘The Pillowman’ at manzi will provide a minimalist yet bold presentation: The staging brings about a close engagement of the audience into the characters’ narratives and their emotion journeys. Together with the actors, viewers also experience every spine-tingling, devil-may-care unbridled moment, much like a group of people gathering around a campfire and listening to horror stories, with each storyteller trying to top the one before them with a yarn even more horrific. The stage, manzi exhibition space, turns into an interrogation room, a prison cell and an execution ground where the audience, like the protagonists themselves, is locked up inside an enclosed yet bottomless box, where each “Once upon a time,…” is a thrilling opening of another compartment / a discovery of a new truth.
Like a misstep into the unknown gap between reality and fiction, between violence and fairy tales, between the fantasy of imagination and the savagery of crime and revenge, ‘The Pillow Man’ not only questions the boundaries of morality, belief and the truth. While in these strange times in which we live, there’s another eerie message that comes through in this play that takes place in a totalitarian state – how words can have serious implications and how the past can mold our perspectives and decide our present. As Charles Baudelaire put it: “Without losing anything of its ghostly attraction, the past will recover the light and movement of life and will become present.”
Contribution to artists:
+ 350,000đ/person
+ 300,000đ/person (applied for students and early bird registrations before 28 Jan)
+ 250,000đ/person (for group of 5 and more)
Register link
> 1st night (07/02/2025) register here
> 2nd night (08/02/2025) register here
> 3rd night (09/02/2025) register here
**Please note: The performance is not suitable for audiences under the age of 16
New Backstage (2024 – 2025) is a non-profit initiative curated by XplusX Studio, supported by the Goethe-Institut Hanoi and Manzi Art Space. The project aims to promote new voices in contemporary performing arts and theatre in Vietnam. All audience contributions will assist cover organizing costs and support the artists.
Follow updates on event’s page.
