REAL-life memories of love, breaking free and the fall of the Berlin Wall come alive at The MAC on Saturday when Bulgarian performer Katherina Radeva brings her one-woman show Fallen Fruit to Northern Ireland audiences.
Following a hugely successful run at the Edinburgh Festival last year, multi-award-winning theatre company Two Destination Language – led by Radeva and fellow artist Alister Lownie – present this latest project which is set in 1989 in the dying days of communism in Europe.
Described as a "beautiful and captivating story", at a time when the UK is preparing to leave the EU and we are again poised on the brink of potentially massive change, Fallen Fruit retraces current events back to the end of the Cold War and its divisions between East and West.
Told by a seven-year-old girl, a couple in turmoil and a sharp-tongued 1980s game-show host – all played by Radeva – the story recounts Bulgaria’s acceleration away from its time in the communist bloc, into the uncertain future of today.
"This is a show about complex choices, barriers and walls in our minds and in our cities," says Radeva, who recently spent three days walking the streets of Berlin, "retracing a past, reflecting and mapping a future".
"This is a city that knows what divides can do," she says. "It looks back with horror and keeps the reminders of the past to avoid repeating the same mistakes.
"I am ever thankful to be able to carve a space and a path for dialogue about difference, about two Europes, about love, about what we construct and about destruction, about bridges and mainly about listening to each other."
:: Fallen Fruit, the MAC, Belfast, Saturday May 11; tickets on sale via at themaclive.com or call the box office on 028 9023 5053.
