After the performances of "Medea" by Oliver Frljić, "Barufa" by Vito Taufer, "Grieving Family" by Jagoš Marković, "Diary of a Madman" by Marjan Nećak, and especially, the premiere of "Blood Weddings" by Igor Vuk Torbica, achievements that marked the Drama Program of the 32nd City the theater is joined by a new production of Miroslav Krleža's masterpiece "In Agony".
One of the most performed and critically acclaimed dramatic texts of the great bard of local literature, which belongs to his cycle about the Glembays, arrived on the Budva stage as an author's project by three great Croatian actors, Nela Kocsis, Ozren Grabarić and Darko Stazić, and was co-produced by the Traveling Theater and the Ribnjak Youth Center in Zagreb. In the church of Santa Maria, they brought to life the exciting characters of Krleža - Laura Lenbach, Baron Lenbach and lawyer Dr. Ivan pl. Križovac, which they dramatized and directed. The eternal story of a fatal love triangle, suffering that permeates people, social ups and downs, conflicts and downfalls, Nela Koscis, Darko Stazić and Ozren Grabarić placed in Laura's tailoring salon - the whole performance takes place among shredded fabrics, Schneider dolls, "singerica" machines and tall lamps, so the Santa Maria space proved to be extraordinary for their version of Krleža's cult play.
In this intimate, minimalist and suggestive scenography (by Petra Kriletić), the audience enters the life of three heroes, becoming a witness to their painful conflicts, naked discussions and the disintegration of their lives. In Krleža's edited text (the characters of Madelin Petrovna, Maria and the mute beggar were removed), the emotional and psychological breakdown of Laura Lenbachova, which Nela Koscic brilliantly portrays, is at the center of the story. With a monologue that talks about possible love, Ivan's deception and her own breakdown, she delighted the audience in Budva.
As Nela Kocsis said after the performance of the play, the character of Laura Lenbachova is very special to her personally, and not only because of the recognition she received for this role (Croatian Actor Award, "Fabijan Šovagović" Award, "Veljko Marinčić" Award of the Festival of Small Scenes in Words). "I accepted the role of Laura with great enthusiasm, because she is one of the best characters in domestic dramatic literature, and with that monologue of Laura, in 1992, twenty-six years ago, I passed the entrance exam at the Academy of Dramatic Arts, so I have quite emotional memories of that text . We worked on this performance with a lot of energy and enthusiasm for almost a year, we researched, experimented, and tried to make it not only beautifully intoned with perfectly spoken "Krležian" sentences, but above all to have an emotional cover. Our goal was to create an exciting, lively , a dramatic play that will be different, but still remain "Krležian", Kocsis stated.
As she says, the most exciting thing about Laura's character is first her emotional points, and then her courage and honesty with which she endures social degradation, and tries to find her own happiness.
"In the earlier productions of Krleža's work, it often seemed that Laura's suicide was a conscious act, which I don't think it should be. I wanted to bring her to a nervous breakdown and complete disorientation, to the moment of complete mental blackout in which she raised the gun on herself. If she had done it knowingly, it would mean that she was shifting the blame to someone else, and that someone should feel guilty for not accepting her as a wife. And those points were the most intriguing to me psychologically. I think, therefore, that all the circumstances influenced her suicide, first of all her nature, but also her social ruin, and the circumstances of that era. Krleža wrote his work in 1928, a woman back then was not as valuable as her husband was, and with his downfall, regardless of the fact that Laura was a noblewoman and the only Glembevic woman among them, she also lost her social positions. That situation might not fully correspond to today's time, although what Krleža is talking about is timeless, and that is the love triangle. But for Laura Lenbach, the most decisive is the value system of a society from the beginning of the XNUMXth century, and I think that she was not sufficiently emancipated precisely in that sense".
About the extent to which women are emancipated today that their position in society is not determined by their husbands, but by themselves, and to the extent that modern times see women through the prism of men, Nela Koscis points out that this is individual.
"Some women are still seen as successful today, because they married someone who has some kind of status symbol, gained money, power, and there are, of course, those who achieve their goals through their profession.
But, in any case, I think that a modern woman also needs the courage to be successful on her own, and that in this sense emancipation is needed in our societies, which still valorize a woman without a man in a different way", Nela Koscis points out.
The tick always has an audience
Actor Darko Stazić, on whose initiative this author's project was created, returned to the stage in the role of Baron Lenbach after a break of twenty-five years.
"First of all, I must say that I am delighted with the reception of the audience at the Gradu Theater, and that it was an honor for us to play our play at this festival. She has a great life both on the home stage and on guest appearances, because Krleža always has an audience. But I must also say that the pressure was quite high while we were creating it, because the play is our author's project that we did without a director, and we made all the dramatic solutions ourselves", Stazić pointed out.
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