Bitef

GLAVNI PROGRAM

it. Man is just one aspect of happenstance with mirthful as well as viciously dark outcomes and the predictable in his life covers a very limited area - emphasises Sophocles in this play - and only his power of endurance is infinite. That is probably why the same author will claim in another text: "The world is full of powers but nothing is stronger than man". There, these enigmatic metaphors drew me to this project. In your approach (thematic and artistic) as the director, what will you apostrophise, lay the emphasis on? The intoxicating seductiveness of power, this illusion of apparent power which is so pleasing to men and which blinds them so badly. Basically, this is an illusion which reduces him, brings him down to the level of a machine the action of which is focused only on the energy of survival and it all limits the power of rational thought and comprehension of things beyond the context of power. The cognition that one's supremacy over the others was actually only a delusion is a cruel and tragic experience. Isn't Oedipus Rex also a story about a man who looks for answers everywhere except within himself (which is actually the only place he can find them), about complexes... Yes, he is carried away by the success of the one who solved the riddle of the Sphinx. This skill and the gift of a riddle-solver bring him to the throne because by solving the riddle he outplayed the Sphinx and rescued Thebes from its tyranny. The solution of one riddle gave him a sense of power and blinded him. He thought there were no more obstacles for him. That his brains, his power placed him above the people around him. Drunk on the delights of these quite mortal successes, he ceases to think and begins to lord it over not only people but over Nature and the supernatural as well and, of course, excludes the possibility of his guilt regardless of the prophecy of a blind wise man. Right up to the very end, when all the details interlace. Oedipus hopes that he will overpowerthe obvious, that these are only riddles he's quite skilful at. The fall is, however, the solution he does not foresee. How much is Oedipus Rex of concern to us, here and now? I can't answer that question. Theatre is an art which counts on the communication with many different spectators. It is not easy to find that middle point of relativity for all of them. And, if we did all the productions in the name ofthat point, we would hardly move further from provoking superficial laughter or tears following the already tested recipes. Which dimension did Gaga Rosie's new translation add to the play? The archaisms were removed from the translation; it was done in rhythmical prose and in modern language. The translator, however, managed to reconcile the text's poetry with the true charge of expression and to do it in such a way as to make the text'speakable'as we say in the theatre. Blic, 21 March 2007