Tongues of Fire

I just designed the logo and poster for famous Macedonian playwright Goran Stefanovski's new play, Ognjeni Jezici (ognjeni = fire, jezici = tongues) or Tongues of Fire.  The poster uses Cyrillic letters because Macedonians use Cyrillic in their writing. Most importantly, the play is also about the Cyrillic alphabet. More about the play in Goran's own words below.

"The play Tongues of Fire dramatizes the question of what is translation and whether it is at all possible?

The example of the brothers St. Cyril and Methodius tells us that it is. In the ninth century they translated the bible in the Slavic language and they invented the Cyrillic alphabet, which helped Christianize the Slavic world. For this they are known today as Apostles of the Slavs.

However they met fierce opposition by the Latin clergy, who put an end to their mission and ruined their lives. The brothers became martyrs of translation. This was the beginning of a war between the Cyrillic and the Latin worlds, between East and West, a war which is still going on to this day.

The story of the Tongues of Fire in the New Testament promises that translation and universal understanding are possible. This is in stark opposition to the story of the Tower of Babel in the Old Testament, which tells us that translation is impossible and that man is doomed to live in eternal  confusion and communication breakdown.

The theme of the play suggests that the devil makes a home in every bad translation and that it merrily resides there."

Goran Stefanovski, 2013

The play, directed by Slobodan Unkovski, opens on November 2, 2013 at the Drama Theater 
of Skopje, Macedonia.

The purple text covering the entire poster is the complete script of the play in 7.4pt Macedonian Times. Detail of poster below.

Billboard design for the play