“The ambient is a raw theatrical instrument. The ambient is filthy, filthy as Koltes’ text. The ambient is a recycle of grand plans that have no concrete desires. Ant this ambient defines the tempo, music, light, play, dramaturge and direction.” Zdenko Kodrič, Večer, 26.6.2012

“The play adjusts to the time and speaks with a con language that is not foreign to anyone. The play also reminds: the lack of attention and the misplacement of the spirit demonically revenge.” Zdenko Kodrič, Večer, 26.6.2012

“Buljan is as a front man in this half rocker scene very intriguing: he gives wings to verbal and physical communication, even more: where there is no love there is no useful trade and if there is lack of both we have to choose a new transaction. Weapon? The director chooses not to use one.” Zdenko Kodrič, Večer, 26.6.2012

“In the solitude of the cotton fields Marko Mandič and Robert Waltl are starring successfully and suggestively. Without resting and in the highest gear. Their speech is barely noticeable and understood in the speakers. The whisperer Simon Šerbinek – his loud interventions are not too often. The set and light design by son:DA is top notch, original. Authors of live music Nenad and Alen Sinkauz – humoring, virtuoso. The dramaturge Diana Koloini and costume designer Ana Savić Gecan – without any remarks. The translator (Dans la Solitude des champs de coton): Suzana Koncut – modern.” Zdenko Kodrič, Večer, 26.6.2012

“Set design plays with the rules of antique amphitheater. The light upgrades the set with phenomenal light effects and fire. The light cuts the space into ribbons, the actors and the dusty concrete floor are never entirely enlightened, filled with scary and paralyzed shadows. The ambient due to the light and fire becomes possessive and dangerous. I have neer seen such light anatomy. And the music? Extraordinary! Rhythmically sophisticated. The sound is colorful. Provided by the couple live – the base player and the electronic. In the background the paralleled voices of Ptuj’s male choir with Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen by L. Armstrong … When the music gets quiet for the moment I feel like I hear the Rimbaud’s verses, the Doors and the meet grinding machine.” Zdenko Kodrič, Večer, 26.6.2012

“Trading follows. The strangers do not know what they are selling and what they are buying. According to the hugs and mad dancing and kissing they could be selling their bodies but their ambition is different: they could be trading with weapons, drugs, white merchandise, they could be trading with antiques, they could be the members of political parties and are battling for control, they could be primitive tycoons demanding percentage from one another … And last but not least, they could be stock brokers dealing under the table with stocks of gas, oil and coal.” Zdenko Kodrič, Večer, 26.6.2012

“The distance as a matter of fact is completely reduced or enhanced to complete physical closeness that overcomes the mental meaning and is manifested in joined energies that completely push out the suggested signs.” Peter Rak, Delo, 26.6.2012

“With the temperamental, extreme life force in which in the unique combination velvet “wacky” vitality, unique love and gentleness, even grace, Mandić is a terrific example of an actor who is completely spontaneous without any extra exertion and strategies also a performer. A man that Grotowski would most certainly give the title of a “world class actor”. The performance demands great physical strain including the crazy dancing at which Robert Waltl, that goves to the solitude of the cotton fields a whole other pallet of emotions, mainly confusion, insecurity and fear, also hope, does not fall behind Mandić’s.” Peter Rak, Delo, 26.6.2012

“Koltès’ impediment towards the theater as a fingered substitute for life in Buljan’s performance completely disappears. And once again about the Talum’s industrial hall: such principals once again prove that Maribor in the year of the European capitol of Culture does not need a MAX center – masters of directing and play are more than capable to create a masterpiece where ever.” Peter Rak, Delo, 26.6.2012

“The performance focuses on the desire for depth, love, connection with significant Other to whom we reach out our hands and who is on the other side constantly drifting away. For the realization we have chosen the biggest possible space, factory hall in Kidričevo to set up the performance that is in some way the synonym of the minimalistic drama. We have two heroes that coexist at a small distance. We have set them in a hangar space. This exact paradox, this ambivalence is in my opinion distinctive for this performance.” Ivica Buljan, www.zivljenjenadotik.si

“Meeting with Koltès and his Cotton fields is for every theatrical creator and the viewer something fatal, special, and dangerous but at the same time wonderful, charming and touching. It is no coincidence that I have as a conclusion of the best and most demanding season as last chose exactly this performance. It is no coincidence that I have such as Ganesh’s cobra for quite some time lured Ivica Buljan, extraordinary and besides Patrice Chéreau best Koltes’ director to finally “combat” with the cotton fields. With Marko Mandić’s and Robert Waltl’s contribution of their souls and bodies to the performance they battled in fatal meeting with hope, anger, fear, desire … that wounds you and which mainly remains unspoken. It can only be read in the eyes of the beholder.”Peter Srpčič, director City theater Ptuj

 

 

Theater of discipline and passion.”

“Ivica Buljan is once again facing with Bernard-Marie Koltès. But this time differently, much differently. The greatest specific to the event are given by the explosive text In the solitude of the cotton fields and the staging of the performance – aluminum factory Talum in Kidričevo. The dramatic writing with surgical dramaturge, the prominent ambient, the stunningly exhausting play and the careful balance of music and scenography lure into temptation of the theater that rarely functions in such concrete collective coexistence.

In the light of the context of the participants this extreme effect of the staging of course contains its own development logic for both actors are by now grown together with Buljan’s aesthetic thought implemented with the effort and physically mental condition – and of course also Koltes.   

Robert Waltl has over a decade ago (and revitalization afterwards) in Buljan’s direction played out a mono drama Night at the edge of the forests that in quantity as well as in dialogical demanding is not far from the Cotton field. Marko Mandić has beside numerous other projects in such relations met in March and in Sallinger.

If we are aware in advance that this basic acting, directing and textual field is in full measurements trained and pureed in its beginning point, we can only predict and (im)patiently wait for the unconventional location in the core of the industrial architecture will contribute to this. Today’s rudimentary and abandonment that are given out by the spirit of the B hall in the core of the Talum Kidričevo factory tells its own story. The suggestiveness of the worked out and dusty floor, beaten out concrete walls, cans of fire, dirty windows and in faraway perspective of the settled out passages lies over the entire event and yet remains at a healthy distance – as well as the light and sound interventions. We are set in the atmosphere – as it is recognizable for Buljan – at the beginning – the theater does not begin, it awaits us.   

In the name of deep bases and sacral vocals (Nenad Sinkauz, Alen Sinkauz), the eruptive light beams and sharp light frames (son:DA); suspicious marginal, the presence of no one and everyone at the same time the enigmatic meeting of the Dealer (Marko Mandić) and Buyer (Robert Waltl) reveals itself. Firstly unsure, careful and controlled, mainly in style with Koltes’s doubtfulness, full of hints and faked reverse ignorance and leading the truth to thin ice. “The deal or trade transaction” that joins the actors at this spot diminishes its own values and meanings throughout branched replicas, runs away from the adhesion, uniqe meaning and the easiness of reading the point.  

The untamable verbal whirl in which the Dealer and the Buyer fall into is metaphorically a confession and coitus at the same time. It is devoted and twisted at the same time, it is spontaneous and manipulative; the unknown sous are observing each other, flirting, pushing away, kissing, stumbling, adoring and despising. In the extreme acting psycho physical readiness is strongly stated the parallel of the speech and the bodies that without a breath alternately dislocate and locate back to the primal position. Uncontrolled poetry is born – of life, of collision of two complete strangers, of the Desire as an ultimate driving force of life, of “acting in acting”, of painful rejections and poisonous attraction. As magnetic fields that join without movement but can with one wrong move forcefully rebound, the bodies of Mandić and Waltl entangle into extreme choreographies of repetitions, dervish and loops, joind to that their words still fall out uncontrolled, passionate, desirable, possessive and with passion of the mechanical drill without any extenuating deviations.   

In the solitude of the cotton fields is a selection of extensive monologues, painful introspections that float on a thin border between sudden flashes and timeless philosophical thought of both characters. It is a revelation of your soul to a stranger, therapy of nothingness and beauty of the world, of people that are unbearably lonely but at this time with extreme force of the foresee into the heart of life forces. In Buljan’s direction and the dramaturge of Diana Koloini it is an excurse into a deep intimacy of a human sensibility that are pierced flesh physiological shakes. And it is a disciplined and passionate imagination that due to extraordinary structural preciseness can at any time willingly or unwillingly become the reality.   

From B hall under the impression of mixture of dust and sweat left Zala Dobovšek.”