Text: Ilirjan Bezhani (Editions l'Espace d'un Instant)

Translation from Albanian: Christiane Montécot

Directed by / adapted by / puppets: Clément Peretjatko

Graphic designer: Nicolas Bianco-Levrin

Actor-puppeteers (4/5 people on stage):

French version: Edeline Blangero, Fanny Chiressi, Thomas Fitterer, Gérald Gaudau, Clément Peretjatko, Loïc Risser, Amandine Vinson.

Kosovar version: Xhejlane Godanci, Fatime Llugiqi-Ademi, Edonis Kastrati, Sylë Kuçi, Erind Lokaj, Adrian Morina.

Duration: 55 minutes

Daku, a rough-hewn weightlifter, and Rando, a near-pacifist poet, are at odds with their loan sharks, who demand repayment of their debt, while Aco, a boss steeped in a largely diluted Islam, trembles at the thought of his wife, Donika, discovering that he borrowed their daughter's dowry. The three cronies, having invested with Rrako, attempt to recover their funds. Rrako then offers to sell the child his wife, Juli, is expecting to a Greek family, who consents to the sacrifice and accepts the transaction. But from the police commissioner to the European civil servant, the candidates for paternity are legion...

This contemporary comedy is set in Albania, in the grip of unbridled capitalism. A surprising take on the financial pyramids and the gigantic crash that plunged Albania into a general uprising in 1997.

Ilirjan Bezhani was born in 1949 in Tirana, Albania. A playwright, actor, and director at the National Theatre of Tirana, he has received numerous awards in Albania and at the Trieste Festival. He notably participated in the "General Balkanization" conference in Paris in 2002. His plays have been performed in more than fifteen European countries, as well as at the Echangeur de Bagnolet and the Francophonies en Limousin festival in Limoges.

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Critical :

"(...) Collapse Theatre, to tell this bloody epic, uses fine and beautiful black shadows cut out of paper, and four excellent actors manipulate the characters (...)"

Edith Rappoport ( Blog Theater)

French version:

Supporters: House of Europe and the Orient (Paris) / Gadagne Museums (Lyon).

Thanks to: La Batysse (Pélussin).

Albanian version:

Co-production: National Theatre of Kosovo and Collapse.

Financial partners: Ministry of Culture of Kosovo, Envie d'Agir (France).

This performance won the "Tibor Sekelj" award at the Zagreb International Puppet Festival in 2010.