Page 129 - 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. 129
Contemporary Slovenian Stage-plays and the Political 129
In her ‘no longer dramatic texts’ she researches how the society (no
matter in which historical age) rules; how common people ad infinitum
perform and preserve the unjust, absurd, patriarchal and stupid patterns
of the system. The ignored, tortured, suppressed and silent women are
common figures in her plays, becoming the real actresses of life. In sedem
kuharic, štirje soldati in tri sofije [seven cooks, four soldiers and three so-
phias], performed in 2014, the key dramatis personae are three women by
name Sophia (the plot is based on the fate of three real women) that in or-
der to become an intellectual, a mathematician, a philosopher and a rev-
olutionary, have violated the rigid patriarchal moral order and are there-
fore all executed.
In mi, evropski mrliči a tortured and suppressed woman is in the fore-
ground, too. This is ex-partisan Milica, now dying in hospice, where she
is finally able to utter a few words and can thus express her story and her
humanity as well. She is the mostly silent witness and as well a figure in
the spinning noise, in the infernal banquet of today’s decaying Europe
(this is one of the several allusions on Srečko Kosovel’s poems). Milica’s
appearance signifies the intrusion of the corporeal, of life and living into
the drive of the system and its abstract, paper values. At the end, the scene
is flooded by the sewage, already leaking 25 years (as long as independent
Slovenia exists), and the dramatis personae just continue with their ineffi-
cient, self-referential acts and speaking that do not resolve anything.
Semenič’s plays lack a direct call to activism or political engagement
although the pathology of Slovenian society is one of their essential top-
ics. In we, european corpses, for instance, the character of announcer, a
kind of mobilizer that politically agitates through the whole text, is even
mocked, ironized and his action is compared with masturbation. Be-
sides, in seven cooks, four soldiers and three sophias, the problems are not
resolved, too, the changes are not made since every try to resist ends as the
predictable inclusion in the system which always swallows everything.
However, the key theme of the play 1981 (2013) are social changes but
these are the changes for the worse; the text does not offer a simple recipe
how to resolve the problems of transitional capitalism. Semenič shows the
condition of the world in all its complexity, facing a reader/viewer with a
diverse range of ethical dilemmas (Pezdirc Bartol 2017) but she does not
call for a mobilization and political action.
The last example is the performance Odilo. Obscuration. Oratorio (au-
thor of the text: Peter Mlakar; director: Dragan Živadinov; introvision:
Janez Pipan; co-production: Slovensko mladinsko gledališče and Kino
Šiška; première: April 2018). As the basis the authors took the documents
In her ‘no longer dramatic texts’ she researches how the society (no
matter in which historical age) rules; how common people ad infinitum
perform and preserve the unjust, absurd, patriarchal and stupid patterns
of the system. The ignored, tortured, suppressed and silent women are
common figures in her plays, becoming the real actresses of life. In sedem
kuharic, štirje soldati in tri sofije [seven cooks, four soldiers and three so-
phias], performed in 2014, the key dramatis personae are three women by
name Sophia (the plot is based on the fate of three real women) that in or-
der to become an intellectual, a mathematician, a philosopher and a rev-
olutionary, have violated the rigid patriarchal moral order and are there-
fore all executed.
In mi, evropski mrliči a tortured and suppressed woman is in the fore-
ground, too. This is ex-partisan Milica, now dying in hospice, where she
is finally able to utter a few words and can thus express her story and her
humanity as well. She is the mostly silent witness and as well a figure in
the spinning noise, in the infernal banquet of today’s decaying Europe
(this is one of the several allusions on Srečko Kosovel’s poems). Milica’s
appearance signifies the intrusion of the corporeal, of life and living into
the drive of the system and its abstract, paper values. At the end, the scene
is flooded by the sewage, already leaking 25 years (as long as independent
Slovenia exists), and the dramatis personae just continue with their ineffi-
cient, self-referential acts and speaking that do not resolve anything.
Semenič’s plays lack a direct call to activism or political engagement
although the pathology of Slovenian society is one of their essential top-
ics. In we, european corpses, for instance, the character of announcer, a
kind of mobilizer that politically agitates through the whole text, is even
mocked, ironized and his action is compared with masturbation. Be-
sides, in seven cooks, four soldiers and three sophias, the problems are not
resolved, too, the changes are not made since every try to resist ends as the
predictable inclusion in the system which always swallows everything.
However, the key theme of the play 1981 (2013) are social changes but
these are the changes for the worse; the text does not offer a simple recipe
how to resolve the problems of transitional capitalism. Semenič shows the
condition of the world in all its complexity, facing a reader/viewer with a
diverse range of ethical dilemmas (Pezdirc Bartol 2017) but she does not
call for a mobilization and political action.
The last example is the performance Odilo. Obscuration. Oratorio (au-
thor of the text: Peter Mlakar; director: Dragan Živadinov; introvision:
Janez Pipan; co-production: Slovensko mladinsko gledališče and Kino
Šiška; première: April 2018). As the basis the authors took the documents
