Taverna Mirësia — Mario, Bella, Anastasia

Mario Banushi, a Greek playwright of Albanian heritage, is a rising star who represents the new face of Greek theater. His play, Taverna Miresia: Mario, Bella, Anastasia, as part of the Grape strand of the festival, explores loss, family and immigrant identity, drawing on personal experience of watching his sisters and stepmother grieve his father’s death.

What matters above all is sensitivity, the antennae finely tuned to human passion, the original processing of images, artistic excellence, the transformation of experience into a cry for more human ways to approach pain, separation and death. There’s no need for words to convey the remarkable stage performances of Mario Banushi. It suffices, as a spectator, to accept that the creator’s memories have the character of the ineffable: conveyed solely through facial expressions, light, sound, and stage. And in some magical way, they can connect with your everyday life.

Banushi weaves together all the elements, at times comical, at times tragic and mournful, that accompany absence. Grief, lament and awkwardness, the void and loneliness are intertwined with the human need for survival, with a triumph of life over death, with bodily needs pressing unbearably and with hunger and thirst linked to the violence of mourning.

Another significant moment for an artist – one who, though just beginning to gain recognition, signs a piece titled “Taverna Miresia,” which can easily travel abroad; because it can move and touch hearts just as profoundly, everywhere.