Survey
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
Theatre of the Absurd wikipedia , lookup
Improvisational theatre wikipedia , lookup
Development of musical theatre wikipedia , lookup
History of theatre wikipedia , lookup
Medieval theatre wikipedia , lookup
Augsburger Puppenkiste wikipedia , lookup
Theatre of the Oppressed wikipedia , lookup
English Renaissance theatre wikipedia , lookup
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. 129