Bitef

DRUNKEN NIGHT IN 1918 Based on a novel written by the bard of Croatian literatura Miroslav Krleza (1893-1981) and describing the dramatic events that took place in November 1918, just as the World War was ending. For the first time in history of Croatia, in those days carne forth thè conflict between a possibility of independent Croatian state and unconditional unification of South Slavic peoples - a conflict of idealism and reason, of ¡llusión and reality.The production will intertwine the novel with excerpts from other Krleza's works, as well documents, newspaper articles and testimonies of thè era, thus forming a dynamic and complex show about a dynamic and complex period in history. Adaptation of this extremely interesting and dynamic Krleza's text, with messages that are relevant to our Contemporary reality, was a task given to Ivo Stivicic.The dramaturge ofthe performance ¡siena Stivicic, so we haveafatherand a daughter in a playwrighting duo, combining two different experiences in dramaturgy, and two different readings of Krleza, from two separate generational perspectives. Director ofthe performance is Lenka Udovicki. Set designer is Zlatko Kauzlaric - Atac, costume designer is Bjanka Adzic - Ursulov, composer Nigel Osborne, stage movement Natalija Manojlovic, sound designer Davor Rocco, and light designer Zoran Grabarac. Although thè starting point of this performance is the novel Drunken Night of November 14th, 1918, the performance is conceived as a kind of a"symphony"into which the motives from other Krleza's works will be interwoven. Our intention was to create a dynamic performance about that time, very complex and significant for Croatian history, in which the huge Austro-Hungarian monarchy lived its last years, and with its social, economic and moral collapse threatened to destroy everything that resisted the germanization of Croatian national identity, the one that put upa fierce struggle to get out ofthe darkness of slavery and find ways to bring its national and ethnic identity into the daylight. These details describe the time in which the setting is placed - a newspaper report published in"Obzor", on November 14th, 1918: 'The tea party went on unti l early morning. Ofcourse, in this turbulent time every, even thè most intimate party turns into a politicai assembly, and so thè yesterday tea party turned into a stage for a heated debate, which reached deep into our future Ufe and which brought much light into the circumstances that preceded the fall ofthe Austro-Hungarian monarchy. Namely, when lieutenant-colonel Kvaternik started his speech, Croatian writer Miroslav Krleza shouted: down with the unworthy, pointing to the activities of lieutenant-colonel Kvaternik during his mandate with Marshall Borojevic and general government in Serbia..." IVO STIVICI^ Playwright and screenwriter, novelist and Journalist. He wrote theatre and film reviews, worked as dramaturge and screenwriter on Croatian televisión, where he was also in Charge of film production and later artistic counsellor to thè chief editor. He was a professor of dramaturgy at Zagreb Drama Academy. More than fifty feature films, TV films and TV series were made based on his screenplays. MIROSLAV KRLEZA Born on July 7th 1893, Miroslav Krleza, thè most prolific and multi talented author in the history of Croatian literature, created superb writings in all literary forms. Heir to the rieh European cultural and literary patrimony, he did not take part in any ofthe well-established models, and his oeuvre cannot be placed in any stylistic form. The peculiarity of his works are, amongst other things, the repeating thematic blocks in all his writings, essays, novéis, dramas, obsessive themes of a intellectual facing the decay of individual conscience. His life and work have often been subject to fierce debates, ranging from his ideologica! stance to his (non)conformity with thè society. He was a very productive editor (Legends, Flags, various magazines), and often, when attacked, he would respond with a new work [My rendering with them, Dialéctica! antibarbarus). Ballads of Petrica Kerempuh are possibly the greatest message he left. His lucid essays, as well as diaries, are very much alive and worth reading even today.The decades of Krleza's work have marked the twentieth Century, and have acted as a milestone; thematically, ideologically and aesthetically a measure of everything written during that period in Croatian literature. True to his motto that our lives are a song without a point, Krleza's death in 1981 was not thè end. Peculiar as he was, he left his manuscripts behind, that were to be revealed 20 years after his death.