A Day in November
My own uncle is senile. His realty is different from ‘normal’ reality. Ionesco’s character the “Old Man” in The Chairs relives moments of his ambitious youth. So does Rumen Gavanozov’s puppet character ,“The Old Man”, star of A Day in November.
“The Old Man” spends his time looking for pickles, falling asleep, waking up, remembering his name, forgetting his name, forgetting the names of trees.
Gavanozov and his puppet are reflections of each other; past and present living in the same fictional moment.
Because “The Old Man” lives in a place of ‘No Time’, too caught up in his past to choose his future, he is in limbo. It’s only when he chooses his name (or chooses to forget it) that he gains an identity.
“I will decide what to forget, to decide what is important or not,” he declaims to his former self (Rumen) in an act of total emancipation. Having made this choice “The Old Man” accepts the invitation of his manipulator to be carried away by a red umbrella.
A Day in November is an absurd, meaningful and oddly pointless play well worth a watch.
– Jack Beglin
