The author’s play Na klancu (45.9652º N, 14.2959º E) directed by Tino Grabnar will be placed in various locations from Celje to Vrhnika. Photo: Jaka Babnik
A theatrical journey in Francka’s footsteps
This season’s program will conclude at the Celje theater on Wednesday, June 10, at 6 p.m., with the premiere of the author’s project Na klancu, based on Cankar’s novel of the same name, by director Tin Grabnar.
The season dedicated entirely to Ivan Cankar will be rounded off in SLG Celje with the premiere of the project On the slope (45.9652º N, 14.2959º E)as it was created based on the motifs of Cankar’s novel of the same name. It is a rather unusual performance, directed by Tina Grabnar it goes beyond established theater frameworks, as it is designed as a journey through space, time and a story that does not take place in the hall, but rather the spectators go by bus from Celje all the way to Vrhnika – to Klanec, as it is today.
“With the staging of Na Klancu, we conclude an unusual, brave and at the same time extremely demanding season, both for the ensemble and the technical team. We started it outside the theater, in the former Majolka inn, and that’s how we’ll end it: with our most production-challenging project so far,” said the director and artistic director of the Celje theater Miha Golob. “We have proven that even with limited resources and a lot of dedication, we can create a performance that would otherwise require significantly larger investments.”
Entering the premises of the novel
Cankar’s novel On the slope (1902) is considered one of the central works of Slovenian modernism, which, through the fate of the protagonist Francka, thematizes poverty, social inequality and life in the countryside at the beginning of the 20th century. In the author’s project On the slope (45.9652º N, 14.2959º E) these contents are transferred to a modern context, and on the way to Vrhnika, the audience enters the space of the novel, walks through the places where Francka once lived, meets people who cultivate the same land today, and discovers a landscape that has been thoroughly transformed by time – where houses once stood, today the highway runs, where the everyday life of the novel took place, there are gas stations, shops and cafes.
Through the exploration of these spaces, the performance explores the relationship between history and the present, and questions how the world described by Cankar has changed and what has remained the same. “Cankar’s novel is largely autobiographical, so we began to explore the connections between the literary space and the real places that marked his life. We were interested in how the narrative from the novel meets today’s space and time,” explained director Tin Grabnar. “This is how the show was created, in which the audience leaves the theater together with us and goes to the actual historical slope. The Slovenian landscape becomes the scenography, and the roads and places become part of the theatrical language. It’s an experience that cannot be created in a classic theater space.”
As he adds, it is a novel On the slope was created during the beginnings of capitalism, and today we live in its extreme forms. “Therefore, the play establishes a dialogue between the world described by Cankar and the world we live in today. This raises the question of how to remain ethical, humane and compassionate in a society that often requires the individual to fight for survival,” concluded the director.
Several different venues
The performance will begin on the platform in front of the theater, where the audience will be welcomed by three “storytellers” (Tina Resman, Žan Brelih Hatunić and Urban Kuntarič), and will continue on the bus and in various locations around Slovenia, where Cankar’s world will meet the modern world and the issues of today’s society. “In the beginning, probably no one fully imagined what kind of performance would be created, but the staging certainly requires extreme attention to Cankar’s text as well as to his teammates and the audience,” he notes. Tina Resman, Urban Kuntarič at the same time, he hopes that the play will open up new questions about the novel as such: “We don’t understand Francka only as a Cankarjan mother, we see her as a full-blooded character – as an exploited woman, a worker, but also an individual, determined by the social and economic circumstances of her time.”
They sign the dramaturgy of the play Benjamin Krnetić and Mojca Redjkoscenography Sara Slivnikcostume design Tina Bončaand she is a music author and sound designer Mateja Starič. In addition to those mentioned, they also play Lucia Harum, Rastko Krošl, Barbara Medvešček, Manca Ogorevac, Tanja Potočnik, Tarek Rashid, Lovro Zafred and Branko Finished.
