June 29, Thursday and June 30, Friday at 8 pm
Theatre &TD, Savska 25

Nick Upper is a Slovenian director who lives in the same individual as the actor Niko Goršič. Their production Grmače is based on a poetic drama by one of the greatest contemporary Slovenian writers, Dane Zajc. Ten years after his first directing attempt with a radical performance piece Veselja dom at Eurokaz #11, Upper returns to the festival with a project which is a joint effort by artists from Slovenia and Croatia.

Social and artistic aspects of Upper's theatre are based on an aggressive, postmodernist rhetoric. He is among the explorers of the new global theatre in search of interaction between dramatic form and performance art, artistic and real time. His theatre aesthetics relies on powerful emotions and is extremely demanding physically. The actors need to be in extraordinary good mental and physical shape in order to join this system of relentless forays and flexible restraints, with a director who always keeps his cards close to his chest.

Grmače is a work of divergent emotions, a complex stage form with well-timed textual emphases, manifest physical energy and dolls from traditional folk art used in mythical parts. Alongside several leading actors and performance artists, the production features students and professors of the Zagreb Academy of Drama Art in the roles of performers, dramaturges, assistant directors and producers.

Grmače is a poetic tragedy of classical inspiration, a dark ballad of hatred and love, a subtle structure interweaving mythology, dreadful folktales, and eschatological conclusions spelling out the disappearance of simple, noble innocence of small communities. The setting is a pagan village not unlike Lars von Trier's Dogville, surrounded by idyllic dales where white women who help the unfortunate dwell, and the immortal golden-horn guarding the treasure is not far away. The threshold of golden death can only be reached with the help of the golden-horn, and this is what happens when a Venetian merchant buys the affection of a lass with a golden ring. The hero sets out in search of the Impossible, to fight the elements in order to rescue and regain his fallen damsel. There are people in this village coveting land that belongs to another, people who talk their spouses into taking their fathers to Death Mount to slay them. All this murky business is supposedly justified by the resilience of some obscure myths, invocations of former dignity, mystification of biology. To the human imagination, the road to the incomprehensible and the impossible leads through the gates of greed. Man will forever refuse to heed warnings – whether from nature or from God. The tragedy destroys the individual, but the writer makes further use the mythic drive to reveal the horror of modern man: hatred, covetousness, hostility, hypocrisy, broken homes. Disturbing ethical theatre about ourselves.

Nick Upper as director, and Niko Goršič as the leading actor in Slovensko mladinsko gledališče and writer, have between them won numerous theatre awards, including 27 for acting: Borštnik Prize in 1975, Župančič Prize in 1983, Golden Laurel Wreath at MESS in 1988 and the same year Slobodan Aligrudić Prize. His work has been featured at countless festivals, he has worked with many institutions in Slovenia and former Yugoslavia, as well as on alternative projects. He has directed plays by Filipčič, Coltes, Kiš, Đurković, in Slovenia, Montenegro, Macedonia. In 1999, he founded Globalni teatar with the intention to explore the interaction between theatre and performance art, but also to make the work of Slovenian and new authors known through international productions.