The Barrier

The Barrier is a stage adaptation in the genre of mystical realism, based on Pavel Vezhinov’s novella of the same name — one of the most emblematic works of 20th-century Bulgarian literature.

The Barrier is an unconventional love story between two different solitary beings — a film composer in a creative crisis and an unknown girl with heightened sensitivity and extraordinary abilities. But The Barrier is also a stirring fiction about human potential.

It is a story about the many barriers around us and within us — the barrier of perception, the barrier of connection, the barriers of the “normality” imposed by society, the barrier between the possible and the miraculous, between the banality of living and metaphysics. Or, as Vezhinov himself defines it — with the qualification, of course, that there is no precisely defined barrier:

“It is a leap over the barrier of mediocre thinking.”

The Barrier marks the 50th anniversary of the writing of the novel.