- Americans Hate Tingle: The play has historically been met with harsh criticism in Bulgaria itself because of the unflattering portrayal of all Bulgarians as a backwards, unclean, barbaric bunch, while the only character who's any better is Swiss. While Bulgarians as a whole love to point out their national flaws, notably in works contemporary to the play such as 'Bai Ganyo, whose titular character would fit perfectly in the play, the overall opinion is that self-irony is different from a shallow, stereotypical portrayal by a foreigner based on exaggerated second-hand accounts (Shaw picked the Serbo-Bulgarian war as a backdrop from the headlines and only got information about the country's culture from a friend.) The portrayal of the Serbo-Bulgarian war also rubs people the wrong way as it is remembered as one of the few purely defensive wars Bulgaria had to wage in response to an unprovoked attack, and thus remains unambiguously heroic in the public consciousness. In 2024, when John Malkovich arrived to Bulgaria to stage the play as a director, he was met by protests.
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