Page 127 - Vinkler, Jonatan, Ana Beguš and Marcello Potocco. Eds. 2019. Ideology in the 20th Century: Studies of literary and social discourses and practices. Koper: University of Primorska Press
P. 127
Contemporary Slovenian Stage-plays and the Political 127
A document itself is never a conveyor of truth; conversely, by entering
the stage its semantic openness and performativity immediately turn out.
The first example is Metamorphoses 4°: Black Holes by Bara Kolenc,
choreographer, theatre director and philosopher (Slovensko mladinsko
gledališče, première: March 2018). This is the fourth in a series of perfor-
mances, with which the author aims to reflect deep controversies of con-
temporary society. The black hole from the title is used as a metaphor for
the erosion of Western tradition of humanism when facing migration,
refugee crisis and, in fact, the Muslim world with the effects of globaliza-
tion. The performance focuses on the true story of a young and brilliant
Algerian-French scientist Adlène Hicheur, employed in CERN in Swit-
zerland, who was sentenced and imprisoned under the accusation of the
collaboration with terrorists. He was actually e-mailing with an Al-Qae-
da member as it turned out later. He was prosecuted in other parts of the
world, too, and was then forced to give up his French citizenship and to
move to Algeria.
The story is put on stage as an interview between the scientist and
two journalists, vloggers. The interview provides us above all with the
information about Hicheur’s story. Being veristic and partly clumsy in
terms of language and semantics, it represents the first textual level of
Black Holes. The second one is signified by several passages of poetry, phi-
losophy and astrophysics that interrupt the first one.
As a whole, the reality that the performance puts in front of the spec-
tator turns out as an extremely simple, binary world. This is the world
of two oppositions: the first is a simple, military and instrumental logic
and diction of Western power (and of its repressive apparatuses, law sys-
tem, police, politics, journalism). On the other side, we meet a package
of poetry, science and philosophy. These are the record of the emotion-
al, intellectual and cultural memory, the testimonies of humanity which
the West has obviously lost but the Muslim world still possesses. It seems
that this is the message of Black Holes: to show the binary world of evil
and aggressive West against the sophisticated and sensitive Muslim East.
The world of the performance is therefore distinctly black-and-white. In-
stead of developing and deepening the material of the true story (i.e. doc-
ument) in terms of creating metaphors, allusions and new ideas or sharp-
ening the criticism, the authors made only a shallow lamentation on the
injustice of the world. As a whole, the performance is overwhelmed by its
explicit moral message that clearly and simply warns the audience about
the intrinsic humanity, sensitiveness and intellectual value of Muslim
culture. At first, it is not clear to whom this message is pointed at. How-
A document itself is never a conveyor of truth; conversely, by entering
the stage its semantic openness and performativity immediately turn out.
The first example is Metamorphoses 4°: Black Holes by Bara Kolenc,
choreographer, theatre director and philosopher (Slovensko mladinsko
gledališče, première: March 2018). This is the fourth in a series of perfor-
mances, with which the author aims to reflect deep controversies of con-
temporary society. The black hole from the title is used as a metaphor for
the erosion of Western tradition of humanism when facing migration,
refugee crisis and, in fact, the Muslim world with the effects of globaliza-
tion. The performance focuses on the true story of a young and brilliant
Algerian-French scientist Adlène Hicheur, employed in CERN in Swit-
zerland, who was sentenced and imprisoned under the accusation of the
collaboration with terrorists. He was actually e-mailing with an Al-Qae-
da member as it turned out later. He was prosecuted in other parts of the
world, too, and was then forced to give up his French citizenship and to
move to Algeria.
The story is put on stage as an interview between the scientist and
two journalists, vloggers. The interview provides us above all with the
information about Hicheur’s story. Being veristic and partly clumsy in
terms of language and semantics, it represents the first textual level of
Black Holes. The second one is signified by several passages of poetry, phi-
losophy and astrophysics that interrupt the first one.
As a whole, the reality that the performance puts in front of the spec-
tator turns out as an extremely simple, binary world. This is the world
of two oppositions: the first is a simple, military and instrumental logic
and diction of Western power (and of its repressive apparatuses, law sys-
tem, police, politics, journalism). On the other side, we meet a package
of poetry, science and philosophy. These are the record of the emotion-
al, intellectual and cultural memory, the testimonies of humanity which
the West has obviously lost but the Muslim world still possesses. It seems
that this is the message of Black Holes: to show the binary world of evil
and aggressive West against the sophisticated and sensitive Muslim East.
The world of the performance is therefore distinctly black-and-white. In-
stead of developing and deepening the material of the true story (i.e. doc-
ument) in terms of creating metaphors, allusions and new ideas or sharp-
ening the criticism, the authors made only a shallow lamentation on the
injustice of the world. As a whole, the performance is overwhelmed by its
explicit moral message that clearly and simply warns the audience about
the intrinsic humanity, sensitiveness and intellectual value of Muslim
culture. At first, it is not clear to whom this message is pointed at. How-
