THE GRAND PRIX for the Best Production of the Borštnik Theatre Festival goes to performance of Mini teater Macbeth after Shakespeare directed by Ivica Buljan

Mini teater has received The Grand Prix for the Best Production, Award for acting and The Young Actor Award at the Borštnik Theatre Festival for the performance of Macbeth after Shakespeare, directed by Ivica Buljan!


The grand jury of this year 44th Borštnik Theatre Festival (BTF) composed of Mario Brandolin, Gregor Butala, dr. Maja Haderlap, mag. Mojca Jan Zoran in dr. Blaž Lukan, president, has given The Grand Prix of 44th BTF to Slovenian-Croatian performance by Heiner Müller Macbeth after Shakespeare, directed by Ivica Buljan, produced by Mini teater, co-produced by Novo kazalište Zagreb, Cankarjev dom Ljubljana and ZaKaeM (Zagrebačko kazalište mladih). Translation by Milan Štefe, costumes by Ana Savić Gecan, scenery by son: DA, music by Mitja Vrhovnik Smrekar, choreography by Tanja Zgonc. Diana Koloini made dramaturgy of the play, lecture by Mateja Dermelj, produced by Robert Waltl, sound by Jasmina Bernjak, lights Franc Albrecht and photography by Miha Fras. Acting by Marko Mandić, Milena Zupančič, Polona Vetrih, Jurij Drevenšek, Jure Henigman, Jose, Stipe Kostanić, Domen Valič and Anže Zevnik. Marko Mandić has received the Award for acting for the lead role and Jure Henigman has received The Young Actor Award for the role of king Duncan.

Grand prix of BTF
The jury of 44th BTF decrees that the performance of Macbeth after Shakespeare grows in the aesthetic, holistic and at the first sight incontrollable organism in a body of performance that always with dramaturgic and directory thought out ideas leads the performers on by the ledges of pure power and uncontrollably pulls the viewer into its current. Macbeth by Buljan doesn’t need anything but actors to achieve the perfect effect, it relies of their youthful, male energy aided by experiences of two actresses, one of them in a male role, and drops them in a gladiator arena where a man to man kind of battle occurs that doesn’t spare no-one and at the same time is constantly aware that the arena is also a theatre stage that allows maximal playfulness and awareness of the performance. Macbeth’s raw performance enfolds in a direct closeness of the viewer that, if he wants it or not, becomes a part of this hellish and ultimately stripped performance.

Award for acting
Marko Mandić has performed Macbeth with an unstoppable, but always-controllable strength, at the border limit of reason and even beyond it, while at the same time drawing from its existential truth. Macbeth of Mandić is at one time a child that breaks up the world for his amusement, at others times a son that, with his mothers help, checks the power and authority, at other times a lover that falls in depths of erotic and play, at other times a human with his drive to exert his will for power for his own sake and because of the delicious taste that comes from its bottom, at other times a person that can not understand that his efforts in the end collide with the unfathomable, irrational power that in spite of all redirects the world to its own track. Marko Mandić is a physical actor to his end, a live statue to his last muscle, while more than toward the world directed action, a self cantered and constantly questioning suffering chisels its edges.

The Young Actor Award
Jure Henigman excels with his different actor expressions, confidence, precision and wild energy in his many parts of his performance.
In spite of his wild energy on the outside, which is a guide for Jure Henigman in his performance from the beginning to the end, his characters, that the actor embodies, are precisely envisioned, rich with expressiveness and controlled. Henigman as an actor doesn’t bow down to power and energy of the performance but he, even with his technically well-envisioned roles, creates, controls and builds to a nearly unbearable intensity.

About the program of BTF
The Jury of this year 44th BTF decrees that the program selected by dr. Barbara Orel confidently reflects the authors and rethinks the Slovenian theatre today but at the same time regrets that the choice of the selector wasn’t fully executed because the selected performance of Slovenian permanent theatre Trieste couldn’t take part in the festival. Members of the Jury repeat their last year findings that the cooperation of the two members of the Jury who don’t come from the space of Slovenian theatre, but at the same time know it, contributed to a more objective view of the selected performances and recommends that the festival keeps this practice. – The Jury this year didn’t give the award for the theatre innovation and aesthetic breakthrough as it is of an opinion that none of the performances in the program fitted the specific criteria for it, all its decisions were reached unanimously.

Mini teater sincerely congratulates all receivers of the awards of the 44th BTF!