Bitef
Photo / Foto: Miha Fräs
generation to see the state of their own soul. It is obvious that both generations are destroyed. If the first one, in its youth, was focused on the engagement, that engagement drowned in the banality of their everyday life, and the other one, which grew up within those ideologies and pseudo-ideologies of sexual and other revolutions, escaped into self-silence and is now trying just to survive. The One and the Other is Strauß' drama about transition from one millennium into the next, which, of course, does not solve the postworld-wars generation dilemmas, but multiplies micro generations and strategies for micro survival of young generations that - like Elaine - do not believe in what is happening around them, that are indestructible puppets that don't do anything and are manipulated by those from above, or are, like Tim - someone else, who is constantly searching for his father. Of course, at the end, all that escapes them, because the marked ones drift in an infinite chain and are getting lost, just like these two generations got lost. Tomaž Topohšič IVICA BULJAN Born in 1965 in Sinj, Croatia, He studied political science at Zagreb University, and after that French language and literature, and applied literature. He worked as a journalist in periodicals "Polet" and "Start", and as a theatre critic in the daily paper "Slobodna Dalmacija", He is a member of the editorial board of the renowned Croatian theatre journal "Prolog". He made his first steps in theatre as a dramaturge, with the directors such as: Vito Täufer, Christian Colin, Jean-Michel Bruyere, Krizstof Warlikowski, Ivan Popovski..., and in 1996 he began directing. His performances were successfully showed at many international festivals: in Portugal, Spain, Italy, Venezuela, Austria, Greece, Macedonia, Belgium, Switzerland, Russia, Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iran, Poland, Albania, etc, and, of course, in Slovenia and Croatia. Between 1998 and 2002 he worked as Drama Director of Croatian National Theatre in Split, He is a co-founder of Mini Theatre Ljubljana, where he works both as a dramaturge ancha director. He received many significant awards for his work: Theatre Dubravko Dujšin award (1997, Phaedra), Petar Brečič award (1999, for an essay about theatre), Peristil award (2001, Oedipus Rex), Borstnik's Diploma and special award based on the decision of the jury (2004, Schneewitchen After Party), the City of Havana medal (2005, Medea Material). BOTHO STRAUB Botho Strauß, 1944, according to many scholars and critics, is not only the most representative writer from the West Germany in the 1970's and 1980's, but also the most educated and most talented among them. His education and career predestined him to become a writer. After the theoretical school years, when as an editor and theatre critic he worked for the journal "Theater Heute" (1967-1970) and practically finished his advanced training, he became a dramaturge at Peter Stein's Berlin Schaubühne am Halleschen Ufer (1970/71 to 1975). As a theatre critic, Strauß was a sensitive observer of the transition from the 1960's into 1970'5, and as a dramaturge, as the most stimulating among his contemporaries, had a great influence on German theatre. All those experiences also influenced his own dramatic work, more than anything else, doubtlessly. Summer Folk by Maxim Gorky (awarded performance at the 9th Bitef). In his adaptation, this drama turned from pre-revolutionary to post-revolutionary. His adaptations of Ibsen's Peer Gynt, Labische's The Piggy Bank and the movie Summer Folk (all shown on Bitef on Film), are among the most outstanding achievements of this theatre. Those experiences, together with the impression that Nolte's new theatrical vision of Chekhov made on him, led him to create Trilogy of Goodbye (12th Bitef). His fourteen plays were staged more than four hundred times in over thirty countries. Besides plays for theatre, he also writes novels and essays. Since 1975 he lives and works in Berlin, as a free-lance artist.