TRISTAN AND ISOLDE
Inspired by: Jean Cocteau
Conceived and directed by: Zoltán Balázs
Dramaturgy: Judit Góczán
Stenography and costume design: Ana Savić Gecan
Assistant Director: David Cerar
Production Manager: Sylvia Huszár
Cast: Vesna Kuzmić, Ana Urbanc, Jernej Čampelj, Robert Korošec, Rok Kunaver, Tadej Pišek in Marko Ujc
Duration of the performance: 60 min
Opening Night: 24th of March 2012, Mini teater Ljubljana
Co-production of Mini teater Ljubljana and Maladype Theatre Budapest.
The new postdrama performance of Mini teater was chosen among 12 competitive performances and among performances of Showcase at the 47th Borštnik Maribor Theatre Festival 2012 and nominated for the best staging in the seasone 2011/12 by the Society of theatrical critics of Slovenia.
ABOUT THE PLAY
The story of Tristan and Isolde is a constant fluctuation between life and death, dream and reality - their love is the fragile experience of momentary eternity. An equilibrium between the commonplace and the ethereal, the concrete and the abstract. One body. Two hearts beating as one. The reflexes of twin souls. Their story presents an opportunity to review the promise of Eden fulfilled . . . What tore this world apart? Zoltán Balázs's production in Mini teater seeks an answer to this question - enquiring into the delicate balance of the relationship betweenman and woman - by unconventional means.
SELECTION OF CRITIQUES
»The performance, full of little and intelligent solutions, aesthetic additions, rationally uncatchable ambivalence (set and costume design by Ana Savić Gecan) is a trip into the borderline author’s view of a love discourse of Tristan and Isolde, which legitimately isolates itself from all the linear procedures. /…/ At the interpretation of the mythology of Tristan and Isolde the director radically shortens the story, cleans it of borderline situations and side characters, also of specific history references and traditions of presence. The core tension is focused in love triangle of Isolda, Tristan and his uncle Mark Kornvalski in a relation narrowed and many times overtaken emotional territory. The cut backs of the dialogues to the basic and most important meaning enlarges the space to extra codes – unstopped choreographed movements, symbolic talk and set minimalism.” Zala Dobovšek; Delo, 12th April 2012
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR
Zoltán Balázs,Actor and director, was born in 1977 in Cluj Napoca (Romania). He graduated as an actor and director from the University of Theatre and Film Arts in Budapest. He participated in several foreign workshops such as in Vasilyev and Jozsef Nagy’s workshop in Avignon. He studied from Robert Wilson in Paris and he also graduated from the European Theatre Union’s directorial course in Stuttgart. His main works: School for Buffons by Michel de Ghelderode, The Blacks by Jean Genet, Empedocles by Friedrich Hölderlin, Pelléas and Mélisande by Maurice Maeterlinck, Leonce and Lena by Georg Büchner, Faust I-II. by J.W. Goethe, Platonov by A.P. Chekov, Inferno by Dante.
Through his performances he aims to give the audience a theatrical experience which is complex, appeals to emotions and senses and raises the scenery, motion and music to the same level as the lyrics. His latest premierein 2011 was Swan Like by P.I. Tchaikovsky. In 2012 he is working with own Maladype Theatre - since 2001 he has been the artistic director - on new performance Don Carlos/Egmont by F.Schiller/J.W.Goethe. In the coproduction as thepartnerships with the Mini teater in Ljubljana he will prepare Tristan and Isolde on the program of Puppet Nomad Academy II. supported by the EU (EACEA).
The performance was created within the international European project »Puppet Nomad Academy 2«, financially supported by the European Comission, programme Culture (2007-2013). This publication [communication] reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
Mini teater is engaged in several European projects, financially supported by the European Comission, programme Culture (2007-2013)
The programme and activity of Mini Teater is co-funded by the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports of the Republic of Slovenia and the Municipality of Ljubljana - MOL.
