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IS THE TIME
OF THE PERFORMANCE
THE TIME OF
OUR LIVES?
jovanoviç
Correspondence
with Du‰an
Jovanoviã
119
Du‰an Jovanoviç directing Rudi ·eligo’s
Ana (1984)
in the Mladinsko lower hall
photo Igor Antiã
jovanoviç
Aleksandar Popoviç
Little Red Riding
Hood (1969)
directed by
Du‰an Jovanoviç
stage design
Maksim Sedej ml.
costume design
Darja Vidic
in the photo
Brane Ivanc,
Boris Juh,
Alja Tkaãev,
Milena Grm,
Majolka ·uklje
photo Mladinsko archives
Astrid Lindgren
Pippi Longstocking (1974)
directed by Du‰an Jovanoviç
stage design Melita Vovk-·tih
costume design Marija Lucija Stupica
in the photo Barbara Jakopiã, Alja Tkaãev,
Silvij BoÏiã
photo Mladinsko archives
which may in a way have encouraged
our frequent and intensive association. I
appreciated him immensely as a writer
and a dramatist. He was extremely
unconventional in his behaviour –
seductively laid back, inexorably sharp
and piercing in his judgements of things
in this world. His words were always
meticulously accurate, caustic, ironic
and witty. He came into the theatre as a
strategist for far-reaching changes and
his ambition was to create a
contemporary theatre for children and
youth. A theatre body that was modern
in form and “open, free, reflective” in
content. However, as one of the key
figures of Stage 57 and the literary
magazines Review 57 (Revija 57) and
Perspectives (Perspektive) who
belonged to the circle of elite
intellectual dissidents, he could not
advocate his ambitions too loudly in
public. Diplomatically cautious, his
Du‰an Jovanoviç
new propulsive aesthetics of
contemporary performing arts that
words were few, ambiguous and
is a name etched in the history of
Slovene drama and theatre of the last
made the Mladinsko a leading
cunning, ingeniously cunning, in fact.
He was an artful dodger who was a topfour decades. Already in his early plays Yugoslav theatre of the 1980s and an
he radically changed the logic of
internationally recognized artistic
notch dramaturg and an invaluable
consultant. In a conversation with him
contemporary Slovene drama. In his
organization throughout Europe and
performances for Student Academic
one felt entangled by his verbal traps,
elsewhere.
drawn into his thought processes and
Theatre (·AG), Theatre Pupilija
guided into ambushes set up in
Ferkeverk and Glej Theatre in the
❏ Your collaboration with the
1960s and 1970s he introduced new
advance. Smole led his conversatioMladinsko Theatre began quite
nalist to openly speaking out his own
directorial tactics that became a
early, specifically with your
ideas, which he seemingly disagreed
paradigm for the performing arts of the direction of Little Red Riding
next decades.
with and impudently provoked
Hood (Rdeãa kapica) by
continuously. I can only compare a
Born in 1939 he received a BA in
Aleksandar Popoviç in 1969. That
theatre project conversation with Smole
English and French and finished his
year, you also directed your
to a scrupulous medical examination.
studies of theatre directing at
breakthrough performance art
Ljubljana’s Academy of Dramatic Arts
Not only did Smole’s x-ray serve him as
piece with the Theatre Pupilija
a personal file on a direction candidate,
(now AGRFT). From the 1960s he
Ferkeverk, designated by Veno
but also had serious pedagogical
simultaneously worked as a theatre
Taufer as “the death of theatre”.
director and dramatist and also coimplications. He taught me how to be
Your next, very influential
critical of my own ideas.
founded the theatres Pupilija Ferkeverk performances for the Mladinsko
and the experimental theatre Glej.
The Pettifogger Farce, The Bald
Theatre were created under the
From 1979 till the mid 1980s he was
Soprano and Pippi Longstocking were
artistic director Dominik Smole,
the artistic director of the Mladinsko
my first steps in pro theatre. In Pippi,
when the Mladinsko Theatre
we freely played and fooled around. It
Theatre. In 1989 he became a
began to develop into a visionary
professor at the Academy for Theatre, theatre for young people,
was a very physical and ludist staging.
Alja was totally committed, crazy and
Radio, Film and Television (AGRFT) in
involving a number of Slovene
Ljubljana. As a theatre director and
magnificent. Children loved her Pippi. If
artists. This was also the time of
dramatist, his work is widely
I am not mistaken, the performance
your influential directing at the
had over 300 reprises.
recognized; he was has been awarded experimental theatre Glej. How
a number of prizes (among them the
Incredibly, but regrettably so, I can
did Mr. Smole persuade you to
Slovene national prize Pre‰ernova
hardly remember The Pettifogger Farce.
collaborate? What was his way of
nagrada and an Obie, the American
working at the Mladinsko Theatre, It left no emotion in me. Not one picture
critics’ award for off-Broadway
and what kind of work was it that from the performance has survived.
shows). The performances he directed you yourself implemented in the
They have all vanished from my sight. I
for theatres of the former Yugoslavia
know that the performance had good
performances, e.g., in The
and selected theatres of Europe
reviews and that is all. Considerably
Pettifogger Farce (Burka o
changed the geography of the Slovene jeziãnem dohtarju), The Bald
more alive in me is the secondary
and Yugoslav theatre of the late 20th
school student rendition at ·ubiãeva
Soprano (Ple‰asta pevka) and
century. His oeuvre as a director
High School, where, as a guest of the
Pippi Longstocking (Pika
includes more than 80 performances.
teacher Marija Saje, I played the title
Nogaviãka)?
Here he speaks about the radical and
role. However, I have always been –
highly influential tactics and politics of ■ Despite the generation difference,
and still am – quite fond of The Bald
performances he co-created at the
Dominik Smole and I were (I think I can Soprano. We performed it in a markedly
Mladinsko Theatre – first as a director afford to say) close friends. We only
rational and musical manner, as a
lived some hundred metres apart,
and later as artistic director – and his
concert of prominent voices. Brane
photo Mladinsko archives
sly way, however, he let me know that
he expected nothing conventional from
me. And this is how I was confronted
with my greatest challenge: that of
throwing sand into the eyes of
ideological coppers, satisfying Smole
and making a performance I would not
❏ The year 1975, with Victims of
be ashamed of. I therefore conceived
Bang Bang Fashion, became a
of a fashion show presenting military
breakthrough year for the
fashion though the centuries, from the
Mladinsko Theatre and most
Middle Ages to the present day.
likely for contemporary Slovene
The staging consisted of several
theatre in general. With your
important directorial highlights at layers. First, there was the glamorous
the Glej Theatre, especially that of hostess (Polona Vetrih and later, when
Polona went to London for
The Monument G (Spomenik G),
together with the performances of specialization, Milena Zupanãiã) with
an ironically specialist discourse on
Dane Zajc under Lado Kralj’s
fashion. I also conceived of two
direction in The Path Walker
choruses. A male chorus of macho
(Potohodec) and So, so under
models who presented the uniforms on
Ljubi‰a Ristiç’s direction, the
the horseshoe-shaped catwalk and
Victims established, within
sang militarist musical hits in various
“repertory theatre”, an entirely
new work principle: (your) text as languages; a female chorus who
script, non-literary construction of stammered in the arena and chanted
entries from the Dictionary of Standard
the performance. You wrote that
Slovenian, pertaining to thematically
the initiative for the performance
related concepts (fighting, socage, the
came from Dominik Smole. What
was the path from the initiative to Scourge of God, fear, man, suffering,
work, home, death, birth, love). Inthe text-script and the
performance? Did you experience between, there were genre scenes:
cultural and political pressures at military scenes, demonstrations of
killing skill, name calling, reports,
the premiere?
processions of the wounded and the
■ I do not remember exactly, but it
maimed.
was about commemorating a certain
We started the study towards the
anniversary. Some official notice was
end of the season and sat at the table
sent to the addresses of all the Slovene for more than a month. At reading
theatres that a round-number
rehearsals, we painstakingly sought for
anniversary of something needed to be the right sound image for each chorus:
commemorated, probably that of the
the intonations, rhythms, tempos,
liberation or the victory over fascism.
sound levels … After the holidays, we
Smole called me and gave me a
continued with the improvisations and
completely free hand. I was to write a researching the set. The premiere was
text and stage it. In his conspiring and triumphant and the ideological grudges
Ivanc, Alja Tkaãev, Majolka ·uklje and
Sandi Pavlin gave excellent renditions.
A very static, very operatic
performance. Brane Ivanc totally
rocked!
jovanoviç
Eugène Ionesco
The Bald Soprano (1974)
directed by / stage and costume
design Du‰an Jovanoviç
in the photo Pavle Rakovec,
Milena Grm, Majolka ·uklje,
Alja Tkaãev, Brane Ivanc,
Sandi Pavlin
were extreme. Most of all they
resented the fact that all the uniforms
without exception (even Partisan) were
equalized in the neutral discourse of
fashion jargon. The television filmed
the performance, but censored it!
❏ Victims was followed by
important and influential youth
performances, A Vegetable Night’s
Dream (Sen zelenjavne noãi) by
Svetlana Makaroviã, your
dramatization of Martin Krpan,
the first performance of your text
The Cold War of Mother Frost
(Hladna vojna babice Mraz)
under the direction of young
Vinko M‰derndorfer and Stink
Opera (Smrad opera) by Svetlana
Makaroviã and Davor Rocco
under your direction. This was
already a part of the Mladinsko
Theatre repertoire which you
conceived yourself in the role of
artistic director. How did you see
the role of the Mladinsko Theatre
at that time within the Slovene
and Yugoslav theatrical spaces?
And how did you understand your
role of theatre director within this
newly emerging organism?
■ In this first period we dealt intensely
with the internal reorganization of the
house. We abolished the season ticket
system, which was an important
strategic decision. It gave us more
time for rehearsals, more room to
manoeuvre for international
appearances, more flexible planning
and a more dynamic seasonal rhythm.
MatjaÏ Vipotnik became the designerin-residence and, with this, we laid the
foundation for considerably more
121
Du‰an Jovanoviç
Victims of the Bang Bang Fashion (1975)
directed by Du‰an Jovanoviã
stage and costume design Meta Hoãevar
in the photo Sandi Pavlin, Pavle Rakovec, Polona Vetrih,
BoÏo Vovk, Majolka ·uklje
photo Mladinsko archives
programme
of the performance
Victims of the Bang Bang
Fashion, 1975
design
Meta Hoãevar
Du‰an Jovanoviç
The Cold War of Mother Frost (1982)
directed by/stage design Vinko Möderndorfer
costume design Meta Sever
in the photo Draga Potoãnjak, ·tefka Drolc
photo Igor Antiã
attractive visual communications. We
half entreated and half snatched the
lower hall from Rog bicycle factory
and furnished it provisionally. The
lower hall enabled a more radical type
of performing, productions that were
not conditioned by the dictatorship of
“the box”. This gave an entirely fresh
impetus to our projects. It was
followed by a rejuvenation of the
ensemble, the professionalization of
the technical staff and the
modernization of the programme for
young people. We also tried to
encourage original Slovene drama for
young people and we made some
mistakes in the process, which I now
regret. The projects you mention
brought small but important changes
to the repertoire. We started with coproductions and tried to spread out in
all possible ways. Invitations for
international appearances came.
Those were the first guest
appearances of Slovene theatre which
were not dictated by the state and
covered by cultural exchange
conventions. It was simple – a
selector came, saw Krpan and invited
it to Switzerland or France.
The Yugoslav space was important
for creating the new image of the
Mladinsko Theatre, an image of a
different sort of theatre. With our guest
appearances in Belgrade, Sarajevo
and Skopje, we established ourselves
outside our domestic environment as
well. We became a kind of reference
point. We were building a theatrical
model that was considerably different
in all aspects from that of the
repertory houses in the country – in
the aesthetics, organization and
marketing. We worked on unique
projects which could not be found on
any other repertoire. In that period, I
considered myself more as an
instigator and an activist and less as a
key herald of new poetics.
❏ During the time of your artistic
directorship, the Mladinsko
Theatre saw a profound turn in
the comprehension of its role in
the Yugoslav cultural space. Its
establishment as the most
important centre of contemporary
theatre – first denoted as engaged
and later, as political. Was this
turn a result of a conscious
liberation of the theatrical
territory, about joining the forces
of the Glej and Pekarna artists
into the new, firmer, larger
territory of the Mladinsko
Theatre? How did such an
audacious and successful project
work?
Svetlana Makaroviã
Vegetable Night's
Dream (1978)
directed by Du‰an Jovanoviç
stage design Meta Hoãevar,
costume design Ejti ·tih
in the photo Milena Grm,
Marinka ·tern, JoÏe Mraz,
Pavel Rakovec, Olga Grad,
Majolka ·uklje, Alja Tkaãev,
Silvij BoÏiã
photo Mladinsko archives SMG
Fran Levstik – Du‰an Jovanoviç
Martin Krpan (1979)
directed by Du‰an Jovanoviç
stage design Meta Hoãevar
costume design Alenka Bartl
in the photo Ivo Ban, Milena
Grm, Vladimir Jurc, Niko Gor‰iã
photo Mladinsko Archives
5 Niko Gor‰iã je z gibãnostjo in tehtno tipizacijo upodobil cesarja Janeza
kot moÏiãka s krono, vladarja – slabiãa, Ïe skoraj infantilno lutko. Vse niti
imata v rokah minister Gregor in cesarica Konrada, ki med seboj paktirata in
mimogrede ljubimkata. Minister Gregor Vladimirja Jurca je bil izborna
igralska kreacija: izredno prefinjen gib, precizna in ble‰ãeãa dikcija,
disciplinirana in zadrÏana komika so poosebili pomehkuÏenega, a ciniãnega
in izrojenega oblastnika. Milena Grm je razkrila Cesariãino pokvarjenost –
spogledljivost in oblastiÏeljnost, zamerljivost in Salomino krvoloãnost.
Cesarica je torej najbolj ãrna v dvoru, je poosebitev propada klasiãnih
moralnih norm, a obenem tudi najbolj dvorjanska od vseh. Prava oblast je
torej v rokah administracije. Princesa Jerica je v osebi Marinke ·tern postala
eteriãna, krhka figura, kot izsanjana v svoji ãudni in izgorevajoãi moãi, ki se
prebudi ob Krpanu.
Marko Juvan, Mladina, 27. 9. 1979, ob premieri Martina Krpana
123
124
Ljubi‰a Ristiç and Du‰an Jovanoviç
at the press conference
for the performance of Missa in a minor
on the LIFT festival in London (1985)
photo Tone Stojko
in our sleepy world where one was able
to hear and see something exciting, the
only thing that you could not read in a
newspaper or watch on television. With
this, at least two things need to be said.
For me as an author, there has never
been an alibi of political theatre. The
Karamazov Brothers and The Liberation
of Skopje were stories that happened in
my family and the events described had
a painful echo in my childhood. And
another thing: political theatre with a
thesis is alien to me. I have never dealt
with political theatre in that sense.
Ristiç was our first retrogardist. Ristiç
the demiurge never dealt with the
ephemeral or the trite. He always gave
his own vision of the basic questions
pertaining to the human community
and thus proved his faith in the
purposefulness of its existence. He
added text, corrected it and crossed it
out, made collages and produced
“newly composed” scripts for his lucid,
temperamental and exciting
performances. In our theatre, he
directed Missa in a minor, The
Persians (PerÏani), Vitomil Zupan’s
Leviathan (Levitan), Lojze Kovaãiã’s
❏ How did you and your key
Reality (Resniãnost), Romeo and Juliet
– Commentary (Romeo in Julija –
collaborator, Marko Slodnjak, set
Komentarji). His assistants were
up the new Mladinsko Theatre
Dragan Îivadinov and Vito Taufer. He
concept? In what way did the two
of you participate in the creation of branded the Mladinsko Theatre of the
eighties with an indelible mark.
the repertoire – in the tactics of
jovanoviç
■ You used the word territory. Quite
accurate! It was essentially about the
same thing that the NSK defined as the
state and it is today defined by the
activities at AKC Metelkova Mesto with
the notions of “liberated territory” and
the “autonomous zone”. It was about
the demarcation between the nonprofiled, conformist, clerical cultural
environment and the aware minority
trying to implement its specificity and
keep it safe from the pollution of the
majority Moloch and also from
censorship and paternalist strategies.
At the time of my management of the
Mladinsko Theatre, I did not sign any
direction in Slovene repertory theatres.
I was only ready to work in the
“liberated territory”. And then
Îivadinov surprised me by wanting to
park his own autonomous zone within
the Mladinsko. I was somewhat
offended at the time, but I know today
that autonomy is the key category
when it is about utopias. The
“independent production” of today is a
remote echo of the same reflex.
establishing the theatre?
■ I have already written quite a lot on
this subject, so let me be short. Marko
was indeed the key person in all the
essential decisions. He was extremely
sensitive, well-read, open and tolerant.
His word was my light – either green or
❏ How do you see the era of the
red. It was poetry sitting at the same
political theatre of the Mladinsko
table with Marko. Our marriage was
today, from a distance of twenty
perfect. He covered my sloppiness and
years? Where do you see the
rashness, he did everything that I did
essential reasons for the great
influence of the phenomenon that not know how to myself or did not have
the patience to do. He talked with the
you created with the Mladinsko
collaborators thoroughly and at great
Theatre in the eighties?
length, he was a dramaturg and
■ First of all, anything different will
therapist, a tireless worker and a
arouse curiosity, admiration, envy or
creator of new spaces of theatrical
resistance. Difference is exciting in
freedom. His big, clear eyes were those
itself and therefore meets with a wide of a friend. For the ensemble, I was a
response. But it is not simple – to be
strict father and Marko was a loving and
different. In a world where equality and gentle mother. With his departure, an
sameness are prescribed, conscious
indescribable emptiness remained in all
difference stands for madness and
of us.
calls for repercussions. The broaching
of forbidden subjects has been a
❏ To what extent was the
flammable and dangerous thing in both phenomenon of Ljubi‰a Ristiç
literature and theatre and many have
important to you personally and to
paid dearly for their courage. However, the Mladinsko Theatre?
society was already imbued with the
viruses of doubt, boredom, apathy and ■ I will never allow my political
hidden resistance against
misunderstandings with Ristiç to affect
my judgement of him as an artist in any
totalitarianism. The system was
way.
cracking on all sides. Numerous
people in responsible positions lived in
The following needs to be said with
great clarity: Ljubi‰a Ristiç was a
a hypocritical manner; they had Party
director of the greatest stature. It is
IDs in their pockets, with their souls
secretly yielding to liberal reveries.
evident from his directing that he was a
connoisseur of the Russian avant-garde,
Therefore, the so-called political
pop art, happenings, American silent
theatre was able to take place either
as a crack in the dam or as some sort film, Brecht’s theory of fragmentary
of idea slip of the system itself. As we theatre, conceptualism, as well as
Dadaism, Futurism and Surrealism. He
can imagine, the audiences were
heated to the maximum by the
harnessed all of this and many other
things into his “new Baroque” art, into
scandalous events of this sort and
wonderful post-modernist collages upon
came to the performances in great
numbers. Theatre was the only place
grand subjects of European dramaturgy.
❏ One of the basic features of the
repertoire or, better put,
programme of the Mladinsko
Theatre of the eighties was the
production of new works by
contemporary Slovene authors,
four of which you also signed on
as director. Twice it was about an
intense collaboration with Rudi
·eligo (whose works you also
directed elsewhere, e.g., in Kranj
and produced an exceptional
staging of The Wedding). At the
Mladinsko Theatre, you prepared
his Ana and The Slovene Sauna
(Slovenska savna), as well as the
staging of Beauty and the Beast
(Lepotica in zver) and Stink Opera
by Svetlana Makaroviã and the
composer Davor Rocco. In all
cases, it was about vivid
collaboration with the authors and
also about something you termed
‘engaged theatre’. In Victims of the
Bang Bang Fashion, you did not
perceive it as political theatre with
a thesis, which is alien to you.
What kind of collaboration and
what kind of engagement was it
about?
■ What is engaged theatre? Let’s see
what the aforementioned dramas deal
with. Stink Opera is a poetic, comical,
didactic “ecological opera”. Ana is a
story about Stalinist purges and
gulags, a passion play about the
suffering of the believing subject. The
Slovene Sauna is a play about the sins
of the impious and about the beauty
parlour as a surrogate for purgatory.
Beauty and the Beast is a play about a
young girl sold by her father to a beast.
If these themes are engaged, they are
engaged because they deal with
socially relevant phenomena, events
125
Plakat za predstavo
Smrad opera
(1982)
oblikovanje
MatjaÏ Vipotnik
Fyodor Mihaylovich
Dostoevsky –
Du‰an Jovanoviç
Delusions (1986)
direction and stage
design Du‰an Jovanoviç
costume design
Doris Kristiç
in the photo
Ivanka MeÏan,
Olga Grad,
Damjana âerne
photo Marko Modic
Programme for the performances
Demons and Delusions (1986)
Designed by MatjaÏ Vipotnik
1 Svetlana Makaroviã – Davor Rocco
Fyodor Mihaylovich Dostoevsky – Du‰an Jovanoviç
Delusions (1986)
direction and stage design Du‰an Jovanoviç
costume design Doris Kristiç
in the photo Ivanka MeÏan
Stink Opera (1982)
directed by Du‰an Jovanoviç
photo Marko Modic
stage design Niko Matul
costume design Doris Kristiç
in the photo: Maja Blagoviã, Niko Gor‰iã, Irena Varga, Neca Falk
foto Igor Antiã
jovanoviç
Rudi ·eligo
Ana (1984)
directed by Du‰an Jovanoviç
stage design MatjaÏ Vipotnik
costume design Doris Kristiç
in the photo Milena Zupanãiã
photo Igor Antiã
128
Poster for the performances
Demons and Delusions (1986)
Designed by MatjaÏ Vipotnik
Poster and programme
for the performance Ana (1984)
Designed by MatjaÏ Vipotnik
Rudi ·eligo
Ana (1984)
directed by Du‰an Jovanoviç
stage design MatjaÏ Vipotnik
costume design Doris Kristiç
in the photo Miodrag Krivokapiç, Milena
Zupanãiã
photo Igor Antiã
time of our lives? To me,
engagement in theatre only means
the specific way of viewing and
understanding that gets
formulated as a challenge to our
insensitivity, cowardliness and
conformity – as a challenge to our
reckless oaths, our daily
automatism, our coming to terms
and our all-understanding
common sense.” The territory of
the performances that you
conceived as artistic director of
the Mladinsko Theatre – Missa in
a minor by Ristiç-Ki‰, Class Enemy
(Razredni sovraÏnik) by Nigel
Williams-Vito Taufer, the stagings
of Emil Filipãiã and Ivo Svetina,
Zupan’s Leviathan, Kovaãiã’s
Reality and ·eligo’s Ana – seem to
pose an engaged answer to the
question “Is the time of the
performance the time of our
lives?” Could the essence of the
phenomenon of the Mladinsko of
the eighties have been the
questioning of this territory of live
theatre?
■ Yes.
❏ From a historical distance, the
“liberated” territory of the
Mladinsko of the eighties seems
self-evident. And yet, quite the
opposite was really the case. The
first half of the century was
marked by numerous battles, for
❏ The other programme highlight example by the fiery polemics at
was your production of two
the Sterijino pozorje festival,
adaptations of Dostoevsky and the where you and Ristiç were
world of his novels. The
branded as “cultural terrorists” by
productions of Delusions (Blodnje), Josip Vidmar. Only through the
which you yourself directed, and
numerous polemics, the responses
The Demons (Besi), directed by
from the entire Yugoslav space as
Janez Pipan, seemed to fit into the well as the exceptional power of
theatrical questioning of the
Missa, Bondsmen and other
contemporary through non“problematic” performances, was
dramatic texts of the past and the
the ice broken for the
more recent – those of Edvard
establishment of the Mladinsko
Kocbek, Zupan and Kovaãiã. Is
phenomenon. This was the time of
Dostoevsky an author through
the boycott of the Slovene theatre
whom we can catch a glimpse of
festival Bor‰tnikovo sreãanje.
ourselves and the time we live in? How do you now see that time of
the “provincial” and “orthodox”
■ Absolutely. The demonic characters theatrical Slovenia and its
of Dostoevsky had a lot in common with criticism on the one side and the
the fiends who were our
quite strong centres of relevant
contemporaries – with the revolutionary criticism in other spaces of
fantasts who shaped our time and our Yugoslavia, e.g., Dragan Klaiç,
destinies without appeal. The former
Lászlo VÎgel, on the other?
the monolithic society also shattered.
That’s how it was perhaps rather than
the other way around! In a pluralist
society there is no longer a single truth
and therefore there is no longer a
single theatre. There are as many
theatres as there are various citizen
communities with related needs,
specific interests and tastes. We (oh,
what a horrible word!) fought for the
right to be different. Now there is no
more need for the confrontation of any
kind of differences. Live everything
there is – Let a hundred flowers
blossom!
❏ The Mladinsko Theatre of the
eighties first connected the forces
of the “new theatre” of the second
half of the seventies. This was
almost immediately followed by
the conscious joining of the
younger generation, especially
that of Janez Pipan and Vito
Taufer. It also led to co-operation
with contemporary playwrights
and the dramatization of
important, frequently politically
controversial texts of the Slovene
20th century tradition (Kocbek,
Zupan). How did you connect
these powerful poetics with the
directors and authors belonging to
different generations?
and the latter distinguished themselves
Du‰an Jovanoviç, a cultural terrorist
at conspiracy, nihilism, terrorism, the
■ I see it as an irreconcilable fight of
photo personal archive
will to power, criminality and insanity. mutually exclusive political and
aesthetic ideas. This fight was possible
❏ For the premiere of Victims of
and sensible in a monolithic society
the Bang Bang Fashion, you wrote: that cultivated monolithic theatre.
“Is the time of the performance the When we broke the monolithic theatre,
■ Pipan, Taufer and Pandur became
organically connected with our work.
By entering the Mladinsko Theatre,
each of them confirmed their talent
and, as it turned out later, started
walking down the thorny path of
theatrical eternity. With Class Enemy,
Vito Taufer created the most authentic
and wild performance based on this
text that I have seen in Europe. An
unforgettable and shattering
masterpiece. With his persistent
manoeuvring in the wings, Slodnjak
has the credit that the premiere of Fear
and Courage (Strah in pogum), woven
with the hand of a master by Janez
Pipan into a moving scenic miracle,
was able to take place. TomaÏ Pandur
more than fulfilled my hopes when I
decided to entrust him with the
direction of Scheherezade after the
guest appearance of Thalia’s carriage
in the lower hall. This was a brilliant
beginning to his soaring rise. I am
proud of them and of the young
directors, whose example is still
followed at the Mladinsko.
jovanoviç
and persons. They testify to an active,
engaged attitude towards life.
Contemporary English “blood and
sperm” drama, e.g., Ravenhill’s play
Shopping and Fucking, is also engaged
in this manner.
The collaboration with authors took
place in a variety of ways. As a rule, the
plays were commissioned. This means
that they were written exclusively for
us. As it happened though, renowned
authors would offer marvellous plays
and we would turn them down for
certain reasons. This is how we
declined Partljiã’s comedy My Dad, the
Socialist Kulak (Moj ata, socialisticni
kulak). It seemed too light. Too “wellmade”. We declined The Miraculous
Stone (^udeÏni kamen) by Alenka
Goljev‰ãek. Actually we did not decline
it, but I was playing smart with her a bit
too much and she got angry and left,
never to return. This, I think, was a
mistake on my part. Makaroviã wrote
commissioned pieces. With her
permission I changed the title Stinky
(Smradek) into Stink Opera. I spent a lot
of time in serious discussions with
·eligo, our author-in-residence;
sometimes I also suggested little things
myself to him. In general, however, my
propositions did not go beyond
“editing”. Svetina was the very
opposite of lapidary and needed to be
shortened to a considerable extent.
What was essential, however, is that
what remained was good.
Du‰an Jovanoviç corresponded with TomaÏ
Topori‰iã.
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