SEASON OF LOVE AND SUCH THINGS
2023/2024 — Season 68
The New Post Office

6

Directed by: Žiga Divjak
Co-production: Mladinsko Theatre and Maska Ljubljana
Première: 31. 3. 2018
Cast
Credits
  • Research assistant: Maja Ava Žiberna
  • Video design: Domen Martinčič
  • Video appearance: Sajjad Ahmadi, Ojalan Alothman, Sayed Mahdi Hashemi, Erfan Gulzari, Omid Moradi, Majid Tahiri
  • Sound design: Iztok Drabik Jug
  • Lighting design: David Orešič
  • Costume design consultant: Slavica Janošević
  • Language consultant: Mateja Dermelj
  • Production management: Tina Dobnik

Thank you: The New Post Office, Judita Nahtigal, Katarina Morano, Marta Globokar, Katjuša Koprivnikar, Slavica Vodopivec, Mirjam Bizjak, Tanja Ahčin, Robert Ristič, Mario Majstorović, Tina Zorman, Cvetka Kernel, Ožbej Račečič, Boštjan Šefic, Bruno Rednak, Andreja Barle Lakota, Katarina Štrukelj and Dragan Kojić.

Description

On 19 February 2016 the principal of the student Dormitory DŠD Kranj gets an unexpected visit from the Deputy Mayor and the Chief of the Civil Protection and Disaster Relief of the Kranj Municipality.
How will we prevent that? How will we prevent that?
Prevent what? Prevent the arrival of underage asylum seekers to the dormitory or prevent the resistance from the students’ parents?  

In the media

In times when the world is ruled by chaos and violence and we are witnessing such a terrible dehumanization of human beings, we can finally stop asking ourselves what kind of people are refugees. The real question is what kind of people are we. The only balanced reaction to the situation is solidarity – and this is no idealization of refugees, it is a normal answer to a fellow human being in distress.

By establishing the antagonism between the private and the public, Divjak discloses the mechanisms of racism of the silent 'centre' of the society, which is not posed against the Other because of different culture, colour of the skin or religion; the underlying reason for its racism is economic. The faces of six refugee children that appear as a video backdrop of the performance thus express that the refugee tragedy is not just a consequence of some sort of 'backwardness' of the countries from which the refugees arrive, but that Europe has a deep problem with its understanding of life, work and fellow humans, which is also mirrored in the attitude towards the children who have escaped the hell of civil wars.

The concept of the performance is minimalist, with minimal music and lighting effects, and it builds primarily upon juxtaposing different discursive practices – a calm intimate confession, administrative address from behind the microphone and the abuse of the privileged position of proclamation: the one who has the microphone will be better heard and has social power – not by the virtue of being legitimate or just, but by the virtue of being the loudest. The straightforward use of official documents and emails allows the performance to outline the brutality and the psychopathology of hatred and the disintegration of possibility for a social dialogue. […] A stage piece that addresses one of the key – and extremely worrying – phenomena of our society and two years after the events tries to re-open the space for a dialogue. A brave and necessary performance.

Research project 6 is an extremely important revival of the critical (self-)contemplation and a useful, essential confrontation with the fears of all sorts, of foreigners, loss of job, aggression of the masses. And above all, it is the self-inquiry about the loss of fundamental humaneness. […] Director Žiga Divjak, last year’s Borštnik laureate for the direction of the performance The Man Who Watched the World, was given a new opportunity at the Mladinsko. With his sensitive and engaged approach once again collated real events, researched the facts in the field (together with the journalist Maja Ava Žiberna) and established an commited creative symbiosis with the actors. The dramaturgy is precise, the temperature and rhythm of the performance are subtly guided – from the initial quiet, personal discourse to the final frenzy. […] The performance should be shown on public television, so it could reach those same crowds that a year and a half ago fulminated against the boys who’d lost everything. Perhaps that fear would at least be replaced by shame.

Guest performances

  • Festival THEALTER, Szeged, Hungary, 8 August 2019
  • Trigger, Ljubljana, Slovenia, 14 May 2019
  • Week of Slovenian Drama, Kranj, Slovenia, 1 April 2019
  • Zoom Festival, Rijeka, Croatia, 28 October 2018
  • Maribor Theatre Festival, Maribor, Slovenia, 22 October 2018
Awards

  • Grand Prix for best performance at the Maribor Theatre Festival (2018)
Press downloads
ZLATA PALIČICA

The performance was selected in the catalogue of quality stagings on the platform Zlata paličica.