PREMIERE

Dubrovnik Summer Festival and Zagreb Youth Theatre

Grzegorz Jarzyna, Roman Pawłowski: TWELFTH NIGHT or What You Will

based on „ The Twelfth Night” by William Shakespeare

Premiere in Dubrovnik: 21.07.2023 

Pre - premiere in Zagreb: 22.09.2023.

Premiere in Zagreb:  23.09.2023 

- Subtitled in English 

 

Director: Grzegorz Jarzyna

Script: Grzegorz Jarzyna, Roman Pawłowski

Set designer: AAFGJAP 

Costume designer: Anna Axer Fijalkowska

Lighting Designer: Aleksandr Prowalinski

Video: Ivan Marušić-Klif

Composers: Marko Levanić, Ivana Starčević

Sound engineering: Marko Levanić

Choreographer: Šimun Stankov

Dramaturge: Roman Pawłowski

Script Translation: Jelena Kovačič

Director’s Assistant: Patrik Sečen

Costume Designer’s Assistant: Marta Žegura

Light Designer’s Assistant: Marino Frankola

Photography: Marko Ercegović

Stage manager: Petra Prša

Language consultant: Ines Carović

Translation associate during rehearsals: Katarina Nadilo

Subtitle translator and editor: Mirna Herman

The play uses excerpts from Milan Bogdanović’s translation of “The Twelfth Night” by William Shakespeare

 

 

CAST:

 

Olivio, then Olivia, prince: Dado Ćosić

Orsina, then Orsino, princess: Anđela Ramljak

Violx, then Cesario, non-binary person: Mia Melcher

Malvolia, hotel manager: Katarina Bistrović Darvaš

Feste, performer: Petra Svrtan

Tomassa, then Toby, Olivio's aunt: Doris Šarić Kukuljica

Andrea, then Andrew, tourist: Barbara Prpić

Mario, then Maria, Olivio's assistant: Mateo Videk

Zoran, waiter: Toma Medvešek

DJ, Registrar: Ivana Starčević

WARNING: The play contains flashing lights. 

VIOLA

Then think you right: I am not what I am.

 

OLIVIA

I would you were as I would have you be!
                                                                       ((William Shakespeare „Twelfth Night”)

 

In Love We Trust

"The 12th Night", directed by Grzegorz Jarzyna, is a staging of one of William Shakespeare's most famous comedies, read from the perspective of gender roles. In Jarzyna's interpretation, the Renaissance comedy of errors becomes a contemporary story about love that crosses the boundaries of gender and sexual preference, changing everything and everyone.

As one of the characters, Olivia, says, love is like the plague that falls unexpectedly, leaving people vulnerable. Similarly, a non-binary person is vulnerable to his or her true nature. Between the lines of the poetic love confessions lies the drama of those who are searching for a language to express their hidden self.

The performance is set in a luxury Hotel Iliria in a seaside resort, where an aristocratic couple, Orsina and Olivio, along with their assistants and friends, arrive for a weekend. The purpose of the trip is to save their marriage, which is in crisis. When Violx, a non-binary person, turns up at the hotel, the couple's plan spins out of control.

"12th Night" tells the story of gender roles and their impact on human relationships. What is sexuality? Does gender define love and desire? To what extent are we able to step out of the social roles that culture has created in us? Does the freedom our countries won in the last decade of the 20th century translate into the freedom of individuals to choose who they are?

 

Photo (c) Marko Ercegović

 

---