WHENTHEORY
ANDCRITICISM
MERELY OBSERVE
PRACTICEOVERTAKING
THEM ON THERIGHT,
AND MARVEL
TomaÏ Topori‰iã in the backstage of
the Mladinsko Theatre waiting for
the performance The Lesson.
photo Îiga Koritnik
EXTRACTS
FROM AN
Sophocles
Oedipus Rex (1998)
directed by Tomi JaneÏiã
stage design Vlado G. Repnik
costume design Elena Fajt
in the photo (foreground) Olga Kacjan, Sebastijan Cavazza
photo Goran Bertok
programme for the performance
Oedipus Rex (1998)
designed by Vlado G. Repnik
topori‰iâ
Interview with
TomaÏ Topori‰iã
TomaÏ Topori‰iã has been a synonym
for the Mladinsko Theatre since the beginning
of the 1990s. Born in 1962, with a master’s degree
[and a doctorate, earned in 2006, add eds.]
in Comparative Literature and bachelor’s in English,
author of many essays and treatises on drama and
theatre, literary reviews, translations, a series of
dramaturgic contributions (to the performances by
Vito Taufer, Eduard Miler, Meta Hoãevar, MatjaÏ
Berger, Tomi JaneÏiã, etc.) as well as the winner of
an award for achievements in dramaturgy. He started
his career as a literary reviewer for Radio Slovenia
and edited the magazines Tribuna and Mladina
(culture section), writes literary reviews for the
Ljubljana daily newspapers Dnevnik and Delo.
Seen from a distance, Topori‰iã belongs to a
generation which was there to profoundly
experience the slipping of time through the fingers.
The atmosphere of the 1980s and the highlighted
civil initiative – so far, the last thrust when culture
and art in the Slovene social context were considered
to have a relevant role of a co-builder of the state
and nation (finally leading to independence as a kind
of a climax) – was followed by an anticlimax, the
subsiding of most of the consciousness achieved.
The time and the state of mind were quickly diluted,
followed by the attentuation of the external power of
the theatre medium. During this process, Topori‰iã
entered the Mladinsko Theatre: in 1992 he was hired
as a dramaturg, in 1995 he assumed the function
of its artistic director and held it until 2003 – in that
same year he obtained his Master’s Degree at the
Faculty of Arts. Since then, he has been the house
dramaturg again and in 2004 he published the book
Between Seduction and Suspicion: The Relation
between Text and Performance in Contemporary
Slovene Theatre. In the interview he is a reflective
interlocutor, avoiding popularized issues, and in
the answers he sometimes moves the emphasis
posed in the question.
229
You Never See Me Where I See You
(1997)
directed by MatjaÏ Berger
stage design Ana Kuãan
costume design Alan Hranitelj
in the photo (foreground)
Draga Potoãnjak, Robert Prebil
photo Goran Bertok
Veno Taufer
Odysseus & Son or The World and
Home (1990)
directed by Vito Taufer
stage design Dalibor Laginja
costume design Barbara Stupica
in the photo Draga Potoãnjak, Milena Grm,
Mina Jeraj, Pavle Ravnohrib, Marinka ·tern
photo Radomir Sara∂en
photo Tone Stojko
❏ How relevant do you consider
Hans-Thies Lehmann’s concept of
postdramatic theatre, what weight
do you ascribe to it? Is it a new
theatrological bible, flogging of
a dead horse, or a mixture of
both? He seems to be treating a
type of theatre towards the
principles and strategies of which
the Mladinsko has in fact
gravitated (and considered them)
for some time – do you therefore
consider Lehmann’s theoretic
investment a pioneer one,
primarily in the sense of paving
the phenomenon that nobody had
been able to put down in words
before him? After all, the
references to the history of
performing arts he mentions
cannot be casually put under the
roof of the construct …
Supremat (2002)
directed by Dragan Îivadinov
stage design and costume design
Dunja Zupanãiã
in the photo Dario Varga
photo Miha Fras
Lewis Carroll – Vito Taufer
Alice in Wonderland (1994)
directed by Vito Taufer
stage design Rae Smith
costume design Alan Hranitelj
in the photo Niko Gor‰iã,
Mojca Partljiã
photo Radomir Sara∂en
■ Regardless of the significance or
turning-point value ascribed to
Lehmann’s concept of postdramatic
theatre, one cannot avoid the fact that
the Slovene theatre has also moved
within his model of postdramatic
theatre. Although Lehmann, being
unacquainted with its history – which
is understandable as this is the culture
of a small nation which was not able to
raise the awareness of its specificity in
the European area because its critical
establishment was not internationally
resounding – only refers to it in certain
cases.
[…] The contemporary Slovene
theatre of the last decades of the 20th
century can therefore, probably very
justifiably, be interpreted through
several theoretical concepts. That is,
Jacques Derrida’s and Philip
Auslander’s concepts of
detheologization of the stage, Bonnie
Marranca and her concept of the
theatre of images and Richard
Schechner’s anthropological theory of
performance, and simultaneously to
Lehmann’s concept of postdramatic,
often overlapping with Jean-François
Lyotard’s concept of the theatre of
energy. All these concepts arise from
the crisis of dramatic author and
representation, and are closely
connected with the crises of the
relation between the text and its
enactment. This is the sense in which
Lehmann should be read, and through
topori‰iâ
Henrik Ibsen – Meta Hoãevar
Family Album (1994)
directed by / stage and costume design
Meta Hoãevar
in the photo Janez Hoãevar,
Polona Juh
231
topori‰iâ
232
him and the abovementioned authors
(as well as Mi‰ko ·uvakoviç), the
Slovene theatre of the last decades of
the 20th century.
The Slovene theatre inherited the
changes brought by the second half of
the 20th century which are also
discussed by Lehmann in his book.
Although the theoreticians reflecting on
it are not sufficiently aware of legacy.
The reason for this oversight is that in
Slovenia there are almost no
monographic or historical studies on
theatre in the last thirty years, which
leads to a situation highlighted by the
leading French theatre theoretician
Patrice Pavis referring to the French
theatre: the theory (in so far as it exists
at all) does not manage to keep up
with the practice overtaking it on the
right. Critics and theoreticians merely
observe this overtaking and marvel,
and sometimes even show an
aggressive or belittling attitude
towards practice. Thus, a number of
the key performances of the new
theatre have not been canonized, from
Missa in a minor by Ljubi‰a Ristiç, the
performances I Am Not I or Alice in
Wonderland by Vito Taufer, to Baptism
under Triglav by Dragan Îivadinov, and
to a great extent even Scheherezade
by TomaÏ Pandur, and even more
obviously his performances from the
Maribor period. Unfortunately, there is
simply no national consensus for the
canonization of authors like Ristiç,
Îivadinov, Taufer and Pandur as
classics of Slovene contemporary
theatre, like Peter Stein and Pina
Bausch were canonized in Germany,
and Bob Wilson, for instance,
in Europe and globally.
❏ Is it possible to draw a parallel
between the concepts of the
postdramatic theatre and the
“new theatre” as conceived by the
Zagreb Eurokaz festival under
the expression of “iconoclasm in
theatre” at the end of the 1980s
and then brought to life in the
1990s? Let us remember that the
then turbulent Slovene theatre
arena with its epicentre in the
Mladinsko (with the
performances by Vito Taufer
participating the most regularly
or Red Pilot of Dragan Îivadinov)
provided Eurokaz with stage
material on which it extensively
grounded its aesthetics and
profile.
■ Eurokaz was above all an important
checkpoint for the new kinds of
poetics of the Slovene theatre, and
also to a great extent those of the
Mladinsko. Here, one should not
overlook certain conceptual emphases
5 Towards the mid 1980s, when it was still possible to describe
Ljubljana as the “last stop of the Moscow metro”, the cultural
panorama of the Slovene capital unexpectedly started to change.
With the flourishing of art galleries, musical initiatives and
theatre performances, the town turned from an idle centre of
provincial culture into a laboratory of a completely new lifestyle.
One of the driving forces of this rebirth was the Mladinsko
Theatre, the establishment that was the first to abandon the
mentality of a national theatre and started to search for ways
outside the classic repertoire and established names, thus giving
open directors with unconventional ideas the chance to realize
their projects experimenting with new spaces, dramaturgic
interweavings and using advanced technologies, projects that
would have otherwise been impossible to carry out. An
independent presentation of the Mladinsko with three
performances, accompanied by opportunities for direct contact,
video documentation and clownery scenes, is the most appropriate
way to give this extremely active theatre hub the credit it also
deserves for the international recognizability of the new Slovenia.
Roberto Canziani in the catalogue announcing the Mittelfest festival, 2001
of its artistic leader and director
Gordana Vnuk, which should be
interpreted as her theoretical view of
the phenomena of contemporary
stage arts, important as a form setting
the place of the new theatre from the
area of former Yugoslavia rather than
as a widely established theoretical
concept. Her terminology is
interesting when linked with the
eclectic poststructuralist theories we
spoke of earlier, and with the specific
features of the art of the second
world, including Slovenia, also
encompassing the Mladinsko and
Slovene theatre, i.e., contemporary
stage arts of the third generation of
the 1990s.
❏ Is it therefore possible to say
that in the Slovene theatre,
postdramatic phenomena are
present to a greater extent than
recognized today; as air that we
have breathed for quite a while?
Astrid Lindgren – Andrej Rozman Douk‰tumf
Pippi (1998)
directed by Vito Taufer
stage design Andrej Erjavec
costume design Alan Hranitelj
in the photo Janez ·kof, Mojca Partljiã,
Janja Majzelj
photo Îiga Koritnik
Brochure accompanying the performance
Pippi (1998) graphic design Samo Lapajne
■ The transformation process in the
contemporary Slovene theatre taking
place in the last decades of the 20th
century can be interpreted as the
paving of the way to a progressive
deviation from the conventional
dramaturgy toward a theatre based
on image-movement-music-texttechnology, which took place
simultaneously and often as a
reaction to the decay of the socialism
story, as a concurrent liberation from
literary theatre and ideology
(socialism). This transition was
accurately described by Mi‰ko
·uvakoviç as a “transition from the
poetics of political art to the art in the
era of culture. This is a transition from
post-Althusserian Lacanian treatises
[…] and simulation (art) of the
ideology of the totalitarian systems in
late socialism to ÎiÏek’s recent
understanding of ideology, used in
interpreting and artistically
restructuring the culture of late
capitalism and post-socialism”.
Strong accents both in the field of
postdramatic theatre and in the theatre
of images first emerged the most
clearly in the works of three directors
(born around 1960) who appeared
after 1982: Vito Taufer, Dragan
Îivadinov and TomaÏ Pandur. They all
found their point of departure in the
path tread by the great magician of
political theatre of the beginning of the
decade, Ljubi‰a Ristiç, primarily his
turning-point performance from 1980,
Missa in a minor. Whilst throughout his
work, Ristiç’s variant of postdramatic
theatre of images was an engaged
one, Vito Taufer built his theatre of
images in a critical artistic dialogue
with Ristiç’s double coding of
socialism. By doing so, he mapped late
socialism by means of deconstructing
the artistic tactics of the modernist
theatre tradition, from the hyperrealism
of Williams’ Class Enemy (1982), via
Filipãiã’s ludic Altamira (1984), to an
Artaud-inspired theatre of images in
the performances I Am Not I (1983)
and Alice in Wonderland (1986).
Within the retro-garde movement of
NSK, the decentralization of the
universe of the dramatic theatre and
an extremely powerful invasion of the
visual into the field of performing arts
were, simultaneously with Taufer,
carried out by Dragan Îivadinov.
[…] Similarly to Baptism, based
on the Wagnerian structure of
Gesamtkunstwerk, but within the field
that ·uvakoviç called the “theatre of
eclectic postmodernism”, TomaÏ
Pandur came close to the theatre of
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
Three Sisters (2001)
directed by / stage design Tomi JaneÏiã
costume design by Elena Fajt
in the photo: Sebastijan Cavazza, Robert Prebil, Sandi
Pavlin
photo Dejan Habicht
Anton Pavloviã âehov
Tri sestre (2001)
reÏija in scenografija Tomi JaneÏiã
kostumografija Elena Fajt
na sliki Sebastijan Cavazza, Robert Prebil, Sandi Pavlin
foto Dejan Habicht
topori‰iâ
Bertolt Brecht
Galileo Galilei (1996)
directed by MatjaÏ Berger
the scenery of the Main Reading Room of
the National and University Library
designed by the architect JoÏe Pleãnik
costume design Alan Hranitelj
in the photo Nata‰a Barbara Graãner,
Janez ·kof
photo Tone Stojko
234
Barbara Novakoviã
The Girl and the Doublebass (1998)
direction and costume design by Barbara
Novakoviã
stage design Aljo‰a Kolenc
in the photo Sanja Ne‰koviç Per‰in, Neda R.
Bric, Draga Potoãnjak
photo Egon Ka‰e
Programme for the performance
The Girl and the Doublebass (1998)
Designed by Aljo‰a Kolenc
I tempi passati (1999)
directed by stage design Vlado G. Repnik
costume design Marina ·tembergar
in the photo Ivan Godniã, Maru‰a Oblak
photo Goran Bertok
images, first with Scheherezade
(1988), the East-West opera by Ivo
Svetina, then with the great spectacles
Faust (1990), Hamlet (1990), Carmen
(1992), La divina commedia (1993)
and Russian Mission (1994). With
Pandur, the deviation from the
“conventional dramaturgy to a theatre
based on image-movement-musictext-technology” (Marranca) did not
cause stepping out of the theatre field
into, for instance, a Wilsonian or
Îivadinovian autonomy and syncretism
of different theatre elements, but a
simulacrum of the classicist baroque
theatre and its involvement in the
aristocratic world, which is constantly
subject to the author’s mythology, the
“myth as a dream of reality” (Foretiç).
A spectacle for today, arising from the
Wagnerian opera of the 19th century.
At the same time, this variant of the
postdramatic theatre of images did not
also mean a return to the dramatic
theatre that would revive the
“theological” primacy of the text, but a
theatre in which there is a prevalence
of images – visual and oral. Their
incidence is extreme. Lehmann
describes it as an “overheating or flood
of images”. The author’s selectiveness
is intentionally minimized, taking from
a wide range of artistic media and
genres, also often from popular
culture. Pandur’s theatre is thus a
“theatre for the post-literary period”
(Kostelanetz).
In the first half of the nineties, a
specific, personalized form of the
theatre of images, which, like Wilson’s,
was based on image, developed within
the field of the so-called repertory
theatre, e.g., in the works by Meta
Hoãevar, especially with the staging
of Jovanoviç’s The Puzzle of Courage
(1994) and even more obviously with
Family Album (1994), the author’s
paraphrase of Ibsen’s The Wild Duck.
This is the way the post-Brecht
theatre, called postdramatic by
Lehmann, was built. The case of Meta
Hoãevar is not a lonely one, with
postdramatic elements found in the
performances of directors like Eduard
Miler, Bojan Jablanovec, Martin Ku‰ej,
Janez Pipan.
With the third generation of
directors, the same period also
brought the ultimate removal of the
border between theatre and visual
arts, most clearly within the hybrid
performing arts, close to the new
understanding of performance as an
interdisciplinary field, an “art of
spectacle” (·uvanoviç), arising from
the happenings of the OHO group,
Pupilija Ferkeverk, the performance of
Pekarna and the initial stage of Glej.
With each of the new authors, the
generation of new forms of
postdramatic theatre and theatre of
images took place in a specific way.
[…]
❏ You became artistic director of
the Mladinsko Theatre in 1995.
Memorable achievements
included among others, a series
of Taufer’s performances, Silence
Silence Silence, Pika, A
Midsummer Night’s Dream, the
establishment of Tomi JaneÏiã
with the staging of Chekhov and
Oedipus Rex, Eduard Miler’s
Hinkemann, performances by
MatjaÏ Pograjc, e.g., Who’s Afraid
of Tennessee Williams? and The
House of Bernarda Alba, MatjaÏ
Berger’s projects (Galileo Galilei,
You Never See Me Where I See
You, Die Traumdeutung, 1900,
The Name of the Rose from
Umberto Eco), the farewell
rituals and Supremat by Dragan
Îivadinov, and within the series
Open Mladinsko, Juliette Justine
by Sebastijan Horvat and The Girl
and the Doublebass by Barbara
Novakoviã. Your period also saw
the beginning of regular guest
performances around South
America and elsewhere, to these
successes and ovations Slovenia
responded with scepticism. How
to explain this?
■ At least since the eighties, more
precisely since Missa in a minor, the
Mladinsko has been an international
theatre entity. The powerful
signatures of Jovanoviç, Ristiç, Pipan,
Taufer, Pandur and Îivadinov, joined
with a Brookian commitment to
research and Artaudian accents into a
non-theological theatre, announced
and enabled the aesthetic boom of the
nineties. The Mladinsko thus
flourished as a space for the
hegemony of heterogeneity,
remaining the centre of theatre
research in Slovenia. The accents of
Martin Ku‰ej, MatjaÏ Pograjc, Emil
Hrvatin, Eduard Miler, Tomi JaneÏiã,
MatjaÏ Berger, Barbara Novakoviã and
Sebastijan Horvat, together with
Taufer’s researches into an extremely
wide field of theatre functions and
projects by Îivadinov, led to the
greatest aesthetical variety in the
history of this theatre. Unfortunatley,
the critical establishment in Slovenia
did not know how – or was not able –
to analyse and properly contextualize
these achievements because of the
limited mechanisms available and
also because of the ideological fights
5Dear Friends,
1. In the eighties and primarily in the nineties, the Mladinsko Theatre developed into a modern type
of a theatre hub dedicated to the research of the latest trends within the field of contemporary
performing arts. Because of its extreme openness to various phenomena of stage languages, its
function in the Slovene theatre and wider cultural sphere in the eighties and nineties became one
which resulted in productions of extraordinary quality, increasingly present in Slovenia and
recognized in international expert circles. As an interesting organizational and artistic phenomenon in
the Slovene theatre, the Mladinsko Theatre was the first to introduce new forms of production and coproduction, its poetics or, in fact, kinds of poetics, significantly influenced the development of the
Slovene theatre and the theatre in the area of the former Yugoslavia, and it also made a considerable
contribution to the establishment of the Slovene theatre in Europe and around the world.
The Mladinsko not being a classical repertory theatre, its performances, not given within a season
subscription series, have covered the entire Slovene cultural space, as well as the theatre spaces of the
neighbouring countries, the rest of Europe, and Latin America. It has also attracted collaborators from
all around Slovenia and other relevant European theatre areas. Thus, it has become more and more
entangled in the entire Slovene space and in different European theatre and cultural spheres.
2. In the beginning of the nineties, the Mladinsko further strengthened its position in the Slovene
and European theatre space and set the foundations for its further transformation into the first theatre
hub for contemporary performing arts of a special national significance. It opened up even more for
any initiative of generationally and poetically different theatre artists, and started to intentionally
establish new forms of production.
The basic programme concept of the Mladinsko (as formed through the practices of the last ten years
and in interaction with various Slovene and European artists) can be summarized into the following
points:
1. The Mladinsko Theatre wants to remain an open space for various productions and coproductions both nationally and abroad. With its ensemble, programme direction, and technical and
organizational base, it wants to establish a theatre as a studio of and for theatre artists and a meeting
point for dialectic sessions between established and unknown, knowledge and research, classical and
contemporary, new theatre practices and their reflection.
2. The Mladinsko must provide the Slovene theatre and cultural sphere with the chance to create:
• the unusual (performances we have not seen yet);
• a special contact and interaction with the audience;
• meetings of artists from different fields;
• new forms of cooperation between artists working in Slovenia and abroad;
• new generations of theatre artists training alongside established artists;
• meetings of master practitioners and newcoming students.
3. As such, the Mladinsko is open for the whole of Slovenia. It finds its programme interest in the
entanglement both in the phenomenon of the Ljubljana city and that of the Slovene cultural sphere
with its specific features. It intends to cooperate in various forms with any interesting entities within
Slovenia and outside it, foster interaction between them and the theatre hubs in Europe and elsewhere.
4. With its programme and conceptual bases open in this way, it contributes to the establishment of
the Slovene dramatic, theatre art of all profiles and all related arts interacting with theatre all around
Slovenia and in other countries. It declares itself a modern Slovene theatre hub developing the
typicality of contemporary arts in Slovenia and encouraging cooperation between Slovene and foreign
artists and production centres and festivals.
3. The season that is just about to begin establishes two fields within such a concept:
1. The repertoire field of four new projects by four Slovene directors of various kinds of theatre or
stage poetics, and of reruns from the previous seasons, recorded in the Slovene and European moment
of contemporaneity on stage and generally present both in domestic and foreign theatres, thus also
outwardly reflecting the state of the contemporary Slovene and European art.
2. The field called Open Mladinsko, offering a varied programme: independent projects by different
theatre and other artists, presentations of domestic and foreign stage events of various kinds,
workshops, colloquiums and symposiums, organized in cooperation with domestic and foreign
partners. Thus, Open Mladinsko should on the one hand become a platform for the unproven,
unknown, borderline, and on the other hand use the presentation of domestic and foreign groups to
provide information on contemporary trends in the area of performing arts, thus, alongside other
festival and presentation projects in Slovenia, provide the necessary reference framework for the
Slovene theatre and cultural public.
The new season, like the previous one, will of course be turbulent. It is like that in a theatre – one
never knows on which side of the hall door to find the reality that is more binding upon it. We believe
that the projects under preparation and the projects presented during the season are a sufficient
challenge for the domestic audience. And this is the audience for whom the projects are intended, even
more so than for the numerous foreign spectators watching our performances every year.
So, see you in our theatre!
Editorial of TomaÏ Topori‰iã in the programme brochure for the Mladinsko season 1996/1997
Marquis de Sade – Sebastijan Horvat
and PrimoÏ Vitez
Juliette Justine (2000)
directed by Sebastijan Horvat
stage design Petra Veber
costume design Jasna Bajlo
in the photo Nata‰a Matja‰ec, Petra Govc,
Olga Kacjan
photo Marcandrea
The Visages of Sand (2003)
project by Ivan Peternelj
stage design Ema Kugler
costume design Elena Fajt
in the photo Damjana âerne
photo Igor Delorenzo Omahen
The Bellringer (1997)
project by Ivan Peternelj
stage design Tanja LaÏetiç
costume design Ema Kugler
in the photo Ivan Peternelj
photo Dejan Habicht
Veno Taufer
Odysseus & Son or The World and Home (1990)
directed by Vito Taufer
stage design Dalibor Laginja
costume design Barbara Stupica
in the photo Olga Kacjan, Milena Grm
photo Tone Stojko
William Shakespeare – Andrej Rozman Roza
A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1999)
direction, stage and costume design by Vito Taufer
costumes made of corn leaves by Stanislava Vauda
in the photo Ravil Sultanov, Nata‰a Sultanova
photo Goran Bertok
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
The Seagull (1999)
directed by Tomi JaneÏiã
stage design Tomi JaneÏiã and Elena Fajt
costume design Elena Fajt
in the photo (foreground) Romana ·alehar
(background) Sebastijan Cavazza,
Uro‰ Maãek
photo Goran Bertok
Neda R. Bric, Damjana âerne, Îeljko Hrs,
Branko Jordan, Nata‰a Matja‰ec, Marko
Mlaãnik, Rafael Vonãina, Barbara Îefran
Who’s Afraid of Tennessee Williams?
(1999)
direction, stage and costume design
by MatjaÏ Pograjc
in the photo Damjana âerne,
recording BlaÏ ·vent
photo Îiga Koritnik
topori‰iâ
on the left about “independent” and
“dependent” production.
This situation made it extremely
important to introduce these
phenomena in the international theatre
and festival space, a space able to
interpret this theatre imagination
machine free of any burdens, but
consistently and critically enough.
Now that we have become settled in
the post-post-socialist period of the
so-called transition of Slovenia, it is
already possible to say from a
historical distance that the Mladinsko
as a phenomenon of contemporary
theatre would not have survived
without this support from abroad. That
the positive feedback in Europe and
both Americas was a necessity for
continuation. This appreciation abroad
led to a duality: in Slovenia, the
Mladinsko was relatively marginalized,
while outside Slovenia it represented
Slovene art, culture and even the
country.
❏ What is the actual context of
South American theatre – isn’t
the Slovene theatre a priori
bound to succeed there?
■ The social context of this theatre or
rather theatres varies greatly from one
country to another. From Mexico to
Brazil or Chile. The context of Sao
Paolo, for instance, is extremely
cosmopolitan, comparable to that of
New York rather than to a European
one. It is similar in Ciudad de Mexico.
Nowhere is the Slovene theatre a
priori bound to succeed, of course.
The least so in the countries where
they do not know us, where they do
not even know where Slovenia is and
what cultural tradition it belongs to.
However, it is true that with
successful guest performances and,
in the opinion of the reviewers there,
turning-point performances, e.g.,
Scheherezade, Odysseus & Son,
Roberto Zucco, Silence Silence
Silence, A Midsummer Night’s Dream,
the Mladinsko has won the status of
one of the most interesting creative
nuclei of the European theatre. And is
presented in these large festivals as
such. Often in the way that what the
audience and the critics more or less
only know of Slovenia is that it is a
country of the new theatre.
[…]
Interview by PrimoÏ Jesenko
Published in Dialogi, 9–10, Maribor, 2004
237
Umberto Eco
The Name of the Rose (2002)
directed by MatjaÏ Berger
stage design Sabina Colnar
costume design Alan Hranitelj
in the photo Ivan Peternelj, Romana ·alehar
photo Igor Delorenzo Omahen
Umberto Eco
Ime roÏe (2002)
reÏija MatjaÏ Berger
scenografija Sabina Colnar
kostumografija Alan Hranitelj
na sliki Ivan Peternelj, Romana ·alehar,
Sandi Pavlin, Marko Mlaãnik
foto Igor Delorenzo Omahen
Umberto Eco
Ime roÏe (2002)
reÏija MatjaÏ Berger
scenografija Sabina Colnar
kostumografija Alan Hranitelj
na sliki Ivan Peternelj, Romana ·alehar
foto Igor Delorenzo Omahen
Umberto Eco
The Name of the Rose (2002)
directed by MatjaÏ Berger
stage design Sabina Colnar
costume design Alan Hranitelj
in the photo Ivan Peternelj, Romana ·alehar, Sandi Pavlin, Marko
Mlaãnik
photo Igor Delorenzo Omahen
topori‰iâ
240
5 Distinctly Signed by the Authors
The Mladinsko Theatre again remained loyal to its fundamental
orientation in the last season: on two stages, which are in fact of
equal importance, last month joined by the setting in the Grand
Concert Hall of the Postojna Cave, it displayed a varied spectrum of
performances with distinct directors’ signatures. The final picture
of the season was again marked by many guest performances: with
its standard repertoire of theatre sensations from the previous
seasons, the Mladinsko visited many festivals at home and abroad,
and among others, also performed in Trieste, Nice, Nancy, SaintEtienne and Bogotá. The performances given by the Mladinsko are
practically impossible to mark with any common denominator in
terms of their contents, as they are extremely varied: there are The
Seagull of A.P. Chekhov, wrapped in the nets of the Strasberg
method, as conceived by the director Tomi JaneÏiã, the expressive
staging of Toller’s Hinkemann, directed by Eduard Miler, the
enactment of Lorca’s poetic drama The House of Bernarda Alba, in
which director MatjaÏ Pograjc envisaged the house as a dialogue
between the happening on the stage and acted and documentary
recordings, and in the end, the spectacle by the director MatjaÏ
Berger in the Grand Concert Hall of the Postojna Cave, a research
into the life and work of Sigmund Freud entitled Die
Traumdeutung, 1900. Within the programme of Open Mladinsko,
the director Sebastijan Horvat opened the last season with the
performance Juliette Justine, with its motifs linking it to the novel
with the same title by Marquis de Sade, but otherwise committed
to the now totally recognizable – within the director’s works –
presentation of theatre as a modular mechanism; the season was
continued and concluded by the performance for children Mary
Poppins by Maru‰a Geymayer-Oblak (co-produced by Ljubljana
Puppet Theatre and the Municipality of Ljubljana, and
consequently presented on the puppet theatre’s larger stage).
Petra Pogorevc, Dnevnik, 25 July 2000
Catalogue of the
Ibero-American Theatre
Festival of Bogotá
(2000)
5 A Theatre that Erases Centuries
It has been over ten years since the famous theatre performance
Scheherezade by the writer Ivo Svetina and director TomaÏ Pandur
was given at the international theatre festival in the Mexican
capital Ciudad de Mexico and instantly enraptured the audience
including critics as well as organizers of other festivals. In 1990 the
Mexican reviewers declared Scheherezade the best foreign
performance given in Mexico that year. As soon as the following
year, Slovenia received this award again. Once again they presented
it to TomaÏ Pandur, earning it for his direction of Faust, a
production of Drama SNG Maribor.
At the beginning of the 1990s, the Slovene theatres began their
expedition around the festivals of Latin America, and now new
theatres are visiting them, and the interest in the shows is such
that quite a few invitations have to be rejected due to other
obligations.
The enthusiastic responses by the audience are followed by new
recognitions by the critics, the latest one again coming from
Asociación
Mexico. The Mexican Association of Theatre Critics (A
Mexicana de Críticos de Teatro) once again declared a Slovene piece
the best foreign performance given last year in their country.
Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, performed by the
Mladinsko Theatre and directed by Vito Taufer, thus became the
third Slovene performance boasting this prestigious award. The
Mladinsko Theatre received it twice, Scheherezade was also its
performance.
Last year, the theatre presented A Midsummer Night’s Dream at
the Arte 01 festival in Ciudad de Mexico and at the Cervantino
festival in Guanajuato. The guest performances were made possible
by the Slovene Ministry of Culture and Nova Ljubljanska banka
d.d., which shows that the economy of Slovenia has also begun to
see in theatre a chance to promote itself. Mexican critics did not
spare their praise, among others putting down in the Uno más uno
newspaper: “Four centuries have passed since A Midsummer
Night’s Dream was staged for the first time. Slovenes erased this
distance. Their staging is entirely contemporary. Shakespeare
lives.”
One should bear in mind that the association of Mexican critics
is one of the oldest associations of critics in the country,
celebrating its 60th anniversary this year. Its members considered
theatre performances from several dozen European, Canadian,
Latin American, North American and other states, and in the end
unanimously opted for the Slovene production.
In Latin America, the trust in the performances given by the
Mladinsko Theatre is such that the organizers of this year’s festival
in the Columbian capital Bogotá put Taufer’s new performance
Ubu on the programme, before he had even started to direct it. For
the director Fanny Mikey, Taufer’s name and the name of the
theatre were a sufficient guarantee. And not just for her, but also
for the Slovene Nova Ljubljanska banka d.d., which also supported
this performance in Columbia.
The joyful news about another Mexican recognition came
exactly at the time when the performance in Bogotá was being
planned. The theatre is thus not only erasing borders of centuries
between the original and the contemporary theatre stagings, but
also between culture and our economy.
Marko Jen‰terle, Rodna gruda, Argentina, No. 3, 2002
The team giving the performance
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
at the Ibero-American Theatre Festival
of Bogotá (2000), Columbia
photo Dare Kragelj
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
The Seagull (1999)
directed by Tomi JaneÏiã
stage design Tomi JaneÏiã and Elena
Fajt
costume design Elena Fajt
in the photo Marinka ·tern, Sandi Pavlin
photo Goran Bertok
Anton Pavloviã âehov
Utva (1999)
reÏija Tomi JaneÏiã
scenografija Tomi JaneÏiã in Elena Fajt
kostumografija Elena Fajt
na sliki Marinka ·tern, Sandi Pavlin
foto Goran Bertok
Ernst Toller
Hinkemann (1999)
directed by Eduard Miler
stage design Marko Japelj
costume design Leo Kula‰
in the photo Ivan Rupnik, Ivan Peternelj
photo Îiga Koritnik
Ernst Toller
Hinkemann (1999)
reÏija Eduard Miler
scenografija Marko Japelj
kostumografija Leo Kula‰
na sliki Ivan Rupnik, Ivan Peternelj
foto Îiga Koritnik
242
Lewis Carroll – Vito Taufer
Alice in Wonderland (1994 staging)
directed by Vito Taufer
stage design Rae Smith
costume design Barbara Porenta
in the photo Mojca Partljiã
photo Radomir Sara∂en