[theatre] Vinko Möderndorfer - Vaje za tesnobo (Rehearsals for anxiety)

The Trieste Stable Theatre (SSG Trst in Slovene) opened its last season with this critically acclaimed work by a prolifc Slovenian plawright Vinko Möderndorfer. Möderndorfer is chiefly interested in hyper-naturalism, semi-sarcasm and social awareness topics in his plays, mainly staying in the realm of the figurative, not delving into the abstract - that he does not do even in his movies, where he acts as the director, or whenever he directs in theatre. Why am I saying this? Because his latest play is focused on the social-monetary crisis and with it the crisis of values with which we are fighting these past few years, if not for an entire century or at least since the last world war. The good point of the performance are the actors, at least some of them, who are making one hell of an effort to breathe life (and not stereotype-infused rhetorics with only a few good shots at being funny and critical at the same time) into their lines. In general the text lacks a more intelligent approach to the topic, because as it tackles the problems of unemployment, family abuse, hierarchical struggle in the rough capitalist world, false ideologies of wealth and beauty and so on and so forth - it does that in a very straightforward way, making no more than our heads nod and respond: "Yes, it's true. What on Earth are we going to do about it?" For my eyes, the whole, not even the efforts of the performance itself, does not reach beyond the point of exposing the problems which are crucial, yet spoken about in that more or less similar manner over and over again. The male part of the acting crew puts much better effort to the performance, but that is also due to female parts being written far less complex in the first place - which I think is symptomatic for a lot of Möderndorfer's theatre work. Maybe that chauvinism is purely coincidental, since classical theatre is still a little bit of a male domain in the sense of role availability ...

I think the play would need more work from the director, the young Jaka Andrej Vojevec, maybe in that same or similar manner, because it really should upgrade the text and its (mostly) too plain approach to the topic, to be completely frank.

[concert/performance] Svetlana Makarovič and Zvezdana Novaković - Lovec na ljudi (The Manhunter)

The young instrumentalist and, above all, a vocal experimentator and profound singer, Zvezdana Novaković, was here more than a worthy counterpart to Svetlana Makarovič and her unrivaled interpretation skills. The performance hall was, alas, too small to comfortably host many times too much people - and thus Svetlana did not have the space necessary on stage to gain a proper mystic distance to the crowd and her energy was somehow abolished or at least diminished. Luckily, her poems were intertwined by (but not in a way of background music, but as solo parts inbetween) Zvezdana's harp playing and singing of various ethnic or performative origins - from Bulgarian folk singing to almost experimental voice metal. Her energy on stage is fresh, vibrantly positive, yet very sharp and self-confident, which was a very intriguing company for Svetlana's eerie poetry of vile hallucinations and allegories of death. Hopefully on the next repeat performances they will give her enough space so she would be able to (at least) breathe, because this obvious energy-stopper of the closest spectators almost ruined the performance alltogether.

[concert/performance] Svetlana Makarovič & Mar Django Quartet - Sneguročka (Kino Šiška, Ljubljana)

Svetlana, a renowned Slovenian poet, performer and public figure, is not the youngest lady anymore, though still a lady of her own, poisonous yet fragile grace, demonstrating how age is really a completely vague and unimportant category. Which is in fact just the deadly combination to make her the best "interpreter" (if this is the right expression at all) of her own work. Such is the "storytelling" nature of her performing her own Sneguročka (a fairytale of the fairy winter maiden), her words being interrupted every now and then by the slavic songs of Mar Django Quartet in the gypsy-jazz mode. No big mise-en-scene, no special light concept,  no concept twists for their own sake, just the noble pathos of a bittersweet-tragic fairytale through the voice of Svetlana Makarovič in her comfortable armchair. And few can match her charisma on stage. Maybe, in my opinion and from what I can recollect, only Alim Qasimov for sure, yet in completely another circumstances and another conception. So, to sum up, a story is told and songs are sung inbetween, not differing much in emotion or rhythm, but that is just about all it takes on a good day to make a night to remember. Simplicity is a symbol of a bygone age, somehow, yet here it regains vital strengths in a way that only this performer can. The musical group, if I forgot to mention, stays elegantly in the background, supportive and 2nd place - nonetheless with big style.

[concert] Grigorij Sokolov - Schubert, Beethoven (Cankarjev dom, Ljubljana)

Grigorij Sokolov has been playing profoundly devoted, as one is almost used to expect of him, just that there had been one minor flaw to his performance. And it has, paradoxically, made his concert even better and an even more invigorating experience to come across. First part of the concert were the Schubert pieces, not excessively emotional, not excessively mathematical or in any way hitting the popular approaches, just pure joy of playing, yet restrained in a special way. At the very beginning of the second part, a string in the piano (around H2, C3), broke, and the effects of this misbegotten incident were to be heard throughout the "Hammerklavier Sonate" by Beethoven. A bit of irony, regarding the title of the composition, on the other hand, the sublime playing of Sokolov made mechanical imperfection seem like a distant, obscure detail.

P.S.: Evgeny Kissin, the only musician to have (allegedly) made the grand maestro von Karajan shed a tear (and not even being of legal age at that time), is on his way to Ljubljana in September. Again, Schubert, and Scriabin. Much remains to be seen this year, obviously. If they could just get those strings to be in shape until then ...