Women as Lovers

Original title Die Liebhaberinnen

Première: 11 February 2023, Mladinsko Theatre – Lower Hall
Running time 2 hours. No intermission. 

Post-performance discussion

Director Nina Ramšak Marković

Translator Slavo Šerc
Dramaturg and text adaptation Milan Ramšak Marković
Set designer Igor Vasiljev
Costume designer Maja Mirković
Composer and sound designer Drago Ivanuša
Language consultant Mateja Dermelj
Lighting designer Andrej Hajdinjak
Make-up artist Nathalie Horvat
Assistant dramaturg (student) Ula Talija Pollak
Stage managers Jera Topolovec/Urša Červ

Cast
Primož Bezjak
Daša Doberšek
Boris Kos
Anja Novak
Ivan Peternelj
Romana Šalehar
Stane Tomazin
Miranda Trnjanin, as guest
Lara Vouk, as guest


The novel by Austrian Nobel Prize winner Elfriede Jelinek is a brutal, cold and witty analysis of class and gender relations in Central European society, centred on two young women, Paula and Brigitte. Both dream of improving their social status and see love with a man as the only way to do so. The play is thematically related to women's novels, but at the same time it tackles social norms, while creating a deliberate distance in both language and narrative style through witty irony. The performance focuses on the idea of romantic love as one of the key conditions for the reproduction of the world we live in. And on violence – the physical, intimate violence, but also the structural, societal violence. The basis is not the people who cause violence, but the idea of romantic love itself, which, as a method for the ideological normalisation of structure, is precisely what violence in the contemporary world requires. We persist in our own romantic notions in order to justify our position in this structure.

The production stayed true to the original text […] – there is no compassion, no pity, no blame. The narrators do not particularly comment on these parts – everything else becomes redundant in the moment. These moments are the show’s strongest, pointing to a truth of the last century that is still true today. […] The relatively naturalistic acting of the whole ensemble is remarkable, (especially considering the intensity of the abuse on display).
Živa Kadunc, SeeStage, 29. 3. 2023 

Director

Nina Ramšak Marković is a theatre director. For her graduation project (F. García Lorca: The House of Bernarda Alba), she received the Academy Prešeren Award. She works both in institutional and independent theatre. She is a regular collaborator of the contemporary circus collective Mismo Nismo, and a co-founder of the Melara Institute and the Academy review Adept.

Producer

The Mladinsko was established in 1955 as the first professional theatre for children and youth in Slovenia. Around 1980, it expanded its programme, in which it linked political criticism with innovative performative practices. Today, it tries to penetrate into the public space from the stage, so that the public space becomes an equal space for performance.

www.mladinsko.com/en
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