If we  regard Veselka Kuncheva’s Momo   as a performance only for children, this will be inaccurate. And unfair. What will children understand  of the time, which consumes our lives? Or  of the fears of the Running Man, who cannot reach even himself? Or  of the Grey Gentlemen, with whom we voluntarily  make a deal?

But Michael Ende has created Momo, or the strange story of the time-thieves and the child who brought the stolen time back to people as a novel for children. And Veselka Kuncheva’ show Momo is also for children. But only  seemingly so.

As Michael Ende digs into the deep, so is the stage version of Veselka Kuncheva not  content with easy answers. Momo recreates a complex and dynamic world on the stage, in which dreams, reality and fantasy interlace, and sometimes even the conversations of the children sound like parables.

“I do not understand, Teddy, why everyone suddenly started to hurry like that and cannot stop hurrying… from hurrying”, said Momo to her teddy bear.

“They are in a hurry, because there is nowhere to stop hurrying for”, answered the Teddy Bear to her.

“More haste, less speed”, said later tortoise Cassiopeia.

In short Momo is a tale that resists both time and growing up. Momo represents the resistance of people being doomed to live according to determined everlasting rules, resistance against the imposed patterns. And also resistance against the idea that there is no escape and that freedom is impossible. That is why Momo, with handfuls of pebbles and a dose of laughter, will have to face the Grey Gentlemen, but she will also have to face her friends who have gradually given up on themselves . This is the philosophy of Momo – life can be wonderful, as long as you enjoy it and do not save on your time.

Adapting Ende is of great difficulty, but Veselka Kuncheva and Ina Bojidarova do not just cope with it – they build new images, but also remain true to the story of Momo.  Of the long title of the novel, the performance has preserved only the name of the main character – Momo, but everything else is  still present. The Grey Gentlemen, who walk as expressionless clerks with briefcases in hand, the watches, which can measure the time, but which cannot stop it and the people, who are willing to trade voluntarily the time in excess, without realizing what they are losing. Therefore, one of the main ideas of Ende is preserved, namely that time is life, and life lives in the heart.

Furthermore, Momo is an exquisite performance, in which the aesthetics is elevated to a cult. The stage design of Marietta Golomehova is  extremely plain, presenting powerful black and white photography at times, as  in the scenes, when the Siamese twins appear, condemned to spin the wheel of time endlessly, or the last scene when Momo shakes the ropes and releases the stocks of time  at the background of ringing bells; or the scene when Momo (Eva Danailova) and Gigi (Vejen Velchovski) play and scatter pebbles over their heads, while sitting in the white circle… Or when Momo and the Roadsweeper Beppo (Svetoslav Dobrev) dance and sweep the  streets… And  many, many more…

At other  times we observe a sumptuous vision and ensemble performances, measured and effective,  without a single fault. In this sense Momo is a virtuously created performance not only in structure, but also in rhythm. There are no random gestures, no superfluous words, no tricks. There are precise doses of alternating light and darkness, pauses and hypnotic chorus, lack of motion and dance. Perhaps due to all this diversity Momo does not fit easily into  genre restrictions – it is not clear whether it is just for children or not, whether it is just puppet theater or not, whether it is partially a music show or a drama to some extent.

The truth is that this does not really matter. To the children – this is a children’s show, to the adults – an adult one. The important thing is that here everything works like a clockwork,  gently and with no interceptions –   starting  with the dramatic foundation and  moving through the excellent stage design and puppets, the proper direction, the wonderful choreography and the music, in order  achieve the dedicated actors’ play. In Momo there is  a flow. And this is  easily felt.

The actors act in full synchronization – regardless of  whether Momo (a very convincing Eva Danailova) is throwing pebbles or is travelling with the tortoise Cassiopeia, regardless of  whether all the characters are moving in the rhythm of the Grey Gentlemen or dancing.  As a whole, Momo is a well-made machine, where everything is in its place.

And as we already mentioned the question of what the children will understand  of the time that consumes our lives or  of the fears of the Running Man, who cannot reach even himself, the honest answer is – it does not matter. The children may understand everything, but they are also permitted to not understand anything. They have the right to ask thousands of questions, because Momo   takes us to a place, called nowhere, and shows us that nothing is what it seems. And from nowhere everyone returns with questions – what is time, how do we save it and how do we spend it? Besides, as Michael Ende says – everyone moves with the rhythm of his own time.

And apropos, the children at home  repeated the words of the tortoise Cassiopeia  (the lovely Angelina Slavova) for months, “tepa-tepa”, they  sang the song of the clocks “tsick-tsack” and I had to explain a hundred times what time is and why the Running Man cannot stop. And today, when I asked the seven-year old Strahil what to write about Momo, he said, “Write that it is something  wonderful.”

And so – here I write it. Momo is something wonderful. Both – for children and adults.