About the play
The play "Norma Jeane Baker of Troy" is not a play about Marilyn Monroe. It's not even a a play about Norma Jeane Baker. This is a a show about cloud. When Anne Carson, the award-winning Canadian author, wrote this poetic text inspired by the life of the greatest icon of female beauty of the 20th century, she did not stop at the fascination that Marilyn Monroe evoked in the audience. More than a famous actress, she was interested in fascination itself, as a way through which desire has something extremely destructive at its core, even when it is not used for a purely commercial purpose - or as a justification for war. By juxtaposing the portraits of Euripides' Helen and Marilyn Monroe, Carson creates a hybrid character that moves between Troy and Los Angeles. At the same time, it does not highlight some possible similarities between these two women or the social contexts in which their story is created. This process allows us to distance ourselves from them. So what remains is a cloud, a space of desire, a fantasy that, even if it is not material ("does not have a body") - it carries within itself weight and the power to move other bodies. Today, the ideal of (female) beauty has naturally changed. From operated "hyper feminine" Kardashian bodies to diverse queer and other marginal aesthetics... the identity market offers a solution for everyone. The reigning fantasy of emancipation through different identities finds its tactics in the increasing fragmentation of the market, but the basic principle remains the same. Even when it comes to Billie Eilish's tomboy look, which seems to communicate that she doesn't want to be liked: there is still desire behind everything. And the cloud for which we are ready to go to war at any moment.
Milan Ramšak Marković
About the author
Anne Carson is a Canadian poet, translator, essayist and professor of classical literature. Born in Toronto, Canada in 1950 and raised in towns near Ontario, she received her Bachelor's, Master's and Doctorate degrees in Classical Literature with an emphasis on ancient Greek poetry from the University of Toronto. Although classical literature is known as a closed, traditionalist academic field, Carson was an unconventional writer and thinker in it from the start. She made a significant impression with the publication of her first book of criticism, Eros the Bittersweet (1986), a reworking of her 1981 doctoral dissertation Odi et Amo Ergo Sum ("I hate and love, therefore I am"), in which she combined translations and poetry and philosophy into a single lyrical, rambling work of art. Among her many different works, perhaps the most notable are her distinct novels in verse: Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse (1998) and The Beauty of the Husband: A Fictional Essay in 29 Tangos (2001). Anne Carson is today considered one of the most dynamic contemporary poets, but her writing has always been torn apart and subverted between different genres and literary forms.
About the director
Nina Ramšak Marković (1994) holds a Master's degree in Theatre Directing from the Academy of Theatre, Radio, Film and Television in Ljubljana. During their studies, they have toured several times with school productions at student festivals both in Slovenia and abroad. In 2014, she co-founded the magazine Adept, a magazine of theatre and film creators produced by AGRFT and the VLU association, of which she was editor-in-chief from 2014 to 2017. She was on the editorial board until 2019. During her undergraduate studies she directed the plays Untitled, Rescued, Triko, Dečko, Lovers on the Underground, King Lear, The Bald Singer, The Search for Lost Purpose. She completed the practical part of her studies under the mentorship of Matjaž Zupančič with the production of Federico García Lorca's The House of Bernard Alba at the Old Post Office of the Slovenian Youth Theatre in June 2016. For the same performance she received the Academy's Prešeren Prize for directing. She was assistant directed by Sebastijan Horvat, Matjaž Zupančič and Oliver Frljić. In 2018, she directed a dance performance produced by Magacin Belgrade, entitled How to do a perfect plie. Before enrolling in the Master's programme, she directed the performance The Tamed Stubbornhead at the Ljubljana City Theatre (premiere 2018). In January 2019, she directed the Master's performance The Day After at the Slovenian Youth Theatre, under the mentorship of Janez Janša and Jernej Lorencija. After the practical part of her studies, she directed the performance Alarms! at the Slovenian Folk Theatre Celje (premiere 2019). In November 2019, she graduated with a Master's degree in Theatre and Radio Directing at AGRFT with the title The Concept of Suicidality through the Performance The Day After. She directed two radio plays in the production of RTV Slovenia, Triko and The Story of a Bedouin and His Faithful Wife and the radio play Copenhagen in the production of Radio Študent. She has collaborated with the Vzkrik Playwriting Festival in 2017, 2018 and 2020 as a director of reading productions. Since 2019, she has been regularly involved in productions by Mismo Nismo, an arts group working with contemporary circus in the performing arts. In the Slovenian theatre space, she works primarily as a theatre director and co-founder of the Adept magazine, but occasionally also as a dramaturg, light designer or assistant director. Since 2020 she has been the director of Melara. In 2021 she participated as a director in the international project Minor in transnational making, produced by Glej Theatre and HKU Theatre Netherlands. In the 2021/2022 season she directed the play Emigrants at SNG Drama Ljubljana.
From the reviews
"The acting of all three actresses is absolutely stunning. The interactions between the characters are extremely genuine, the monologues are performed fully and emotionally. The post-dramatic fusion of stage and audience is taken beyond speech with elaborate facial expressions, with Mia Skrbinac being a particular standout. The added acting is complemented by a highly appropriate set, which, in its chaotic arrangement of objects around the space, adapts to the variety of the stage action and the themes presented. The same applies to the costume design and the picturesque musical selections." (...) "Norma Jeane Baker Trojanska does absolutely everything right in her staging of the female experience. She deftly avoids commenting on individual women's issues, preferring instead to meld them into a chaotic, grotesque whole. It is the latter, however, that is the only one able to sum up comprehensively what it means to be Helena, Marylin, Norma. Woman to woman!" Neva Accetto Vranac, Koridor
"The various elements of theatrical language in the aesthetics of kitsch and thrash, with a rather successful collage, ensure the production of a capitalist subjectivation that remains under-represented both in actual political struggles and in various practices of representation. In doing so, it skilfully escapes their essentialised representations, that is to say, it does not hold them up as identities with one essential defining characteristic, but rather allows the audience - on the contrary - to observe them in the conflicting structure of class relations in contemporary society." Blaž Gselman, Veza Sigledal
"But because the production is strong in its individual elements, from the actresses, to the set, to the dramaturgy, its lack of clarity of thought does not constitute a hamartia of performance, because it is precisely the lack of clarity that brings it a certain level of clarity, where the interweaving of past, semi-past and contemporary stories can be more pronounced." Benjamin Zajc, Delo
