The magnificent Diana Dimitrova, star of the TV series "Stolen Life" and "The Lies Inside Us", the magnetic Kalin Vrachanski and the talented Stoyan Radev are in the main roles in the performance "Tobacco" of Varna Theatre, which Plovdiv residents will be able to see on April 13 at 19.00 in the House of Culture Boris Hristov. They are Irina, Boris Morev and Von Geyer - the charismatic characters of Dimitar Dimov, the blazing sides of a destructive love triangle from the novel "Tobacco" and the world of "Nicotiana".

"Tobacco", one of the 10 most beloved books of the Bulgarians, has an uneasy literary fate. A remarkable panorama of the time when Bulgaria was in the German zone of influence, the novel, first published in 1951, deals with the loneliness of the individual and the pressure of capital on the moral foundations of man. The very next year, it was condemned in a discussion of the SBP as a "conduit of Western influence" and politically "unorthodox" in its content. Despite a congratulatory telegram from then Prime Minister Valko Chervenkov, the censorious critics, led by Panteleye Zarev, pressured the writer to change the text. Thus was born the second edition of Tobacco (1954), supplemented with characters in the style of the then dominant "socialist realism" (1955).

For decades, only this official version of the novel was distributed in totalitarian Bulgaria. Its original version was published again, thanks to the heirs, only in 1992.

The performance "Tobacco" was one of the highlights of the jubilee programme of the Drama Theatre "Stoyan Bachvarov" for its 100th anniversary. Today, 72 years after the release of the novel and 62 years after the film with Nevena Kokanova and Yordan Matev, "Tobacco" is a spectacle like a knife in the throat. The world has been corroded by war. People fight for power, money, domination over the other. A shattering and sensual spectacle of an impossible love.

"Tobacco" is a provocation for the theatre, for the actors, for the viewer, and for the director Bina Haralampieva. A performance in which the viewer will rediscover many topical themes that connect past and present. For the dramatization Yuri Dachev used the original, uncensored version of the novel. The set and costumes are by Svila Velichkova and Vanina Tsandeva, the composer is Assen Avramov.

Varna Theatre and Music Production Centre and Stoyan Bachvarov Drama Theatre present Tobacco for the third time in Plovdiv.