Damned be the traitor of his homeland!
Preklet naj bo izdajalec svoje domovine!
In this performance, Oliver Frljić deals with love and hate towards theatre; the framework for his questioning of the limits of artistic and civic freedom are the fragments of a story about the disintegration of Yugoslavia, a symbolic space inhabited by actors full of dilemmas we all encounter, but to which we often willingly turn a blind eye. The universality of the play was confirmed during very successful performances at prominent festivals.
As the critic of the French “Le Figaro” wrote, everybody agrees that «the performance hits hard, and intentionally. […] These actors […] believe in the power of theatre that connects, enlightens, acts. In our spoilt society where stages are saturated with ‘cultural products’ with no flavour, this is very good news.»
direction Oliver Frljić
with Primož Bezjak, Olga Grad, Uroš Kaurin/Blaž Šef, Boris Kos, Uroš Maček, Draga Potočnjak, Matej Recer, Romana Šalehar, Dario Varga, Matija Vastl
the text of the performance is based on the improvisations of the actors
dramaturgy Borut Šeparović, Tomaž Toporišič
set and costume design, music selection Oliver Frljić
assistant director and movement consultant Matjaž Farič
sound design Silvo Zupančič
lighting design Oliver Frljić, Tomaž Štrucl
production management Tina Malič
stage manager Urša Červ / Liam Hlede
duration 75′
Oliver Frljić was born in 1976 in Bosnia-Herzegovina. He works as a director, author, actor and theorist in Croatia, where he studied philosophy, religious studies and directing. His productions have garnered him several awards and invitations to international festivals. From 2014-2016 he served as the artistic director of the Croatian National Theatre in Rijeka. In early 2016 he announced that he was resigning out of protest against Croatian cultural policy. In 2017, his play KLATWA (THE CURSE) was invited for two guest performances at the Maxim Gorki Theatre. His play DAMNED BE THE TRAITOR OF HIS HOMELAND!, which was first staged at the Mladinsko Theater in Ljubljana, was also invited to the Gorki’s WAR OR PEACE Festival. His politically charged productions have received numerous awards and have been shown at various theatre festivals, including Vienna Festival; the New Plays From Europe festival in Wiesbaden; Kunstenfestivaldesarts in Brussels; Dialog in Wrocław; the Belgrade International Theatre Festival; Festival TransAmériques in Montreal; and the La MaMa festival in New York. Since the season 22/23 Frljić is Co-Artistic Director at the Maxim Gorki Theatre.
Slovensko mladinsko gledališče
In English, we call the Slovensko mladinsko gledališče – which literally translated means Slovenian Youth Theatre – the Mladinsko Theatre. It carries its history in its name. And at the same time surpasses it.
MLADINSKO. For or of youth. The Mladinsko Theatre was established in 1955 as the first professional theatre for children and youth in Slovenia. In the first twenty-five years, it created for them. But it never underestimated its young audience. Since the very beginning, it has tackled heavy topics, like the Holocaust, coming of age, love in the times of revolution … And then around 1980, it took a new step and deliberately expanded its programme, in which it linked – and continues to link – political criticism and provocativeness with innovative performative procedures and fresh poetics, to attract the audiences of all ages. MLADINSKO IS NOT JUST FOR THE YOUTH.
SLOVENIAN. Mladinsko’s home is in Ljubljana. The house in which we conceive, create, study, play is here. Yet, we are an organism in constant movement, as we perform a significant portion of our performances on tour. From the very early days in Slovenia and (then) Yugoslavia, but at least since the early 1980s, we’ve been firmly embedded into the theatre landscape of Europe and, since the 1990s, also South America and other continents. In over forty countries around the world, our versatile ensemble, capable of extraordinary transformations, has left an indelible impression, as it is full of actors who can tackle music, choreography or psychological challenges and do not abide to a hierarchy or a star system, but support each other to become a fine-tuned whole. MLADINSKO IS NOT SLOVENIAN ONLY.
THEATRE. We are a theatre. But we expect more than just “watching” from our spectators, we try to engage them into a dialogue and make them active participants. We create performances. But we don’t create in a vacuum. We critically observe our society, comment on it and strive to shape it. Mladinsko is a theatre organism that tries to penetrate into the public space from the stage, so that for us, the public space becomes an equal space for performance. MLADINSKO IS MORE THAN A THEATRE.
