With the upcoming marking of the 400THANNIVERSARY OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE’S DEATH commemorating the great Bard we kindly invite you TO MANY TIMES ALSO INTERNATIONALLY AWARDED MINI TEATER’S PERFORMANCE MACBETH AFTER SHAKESPEARE directed by Ivica Buljan in Mini teater, Križevniška Street on SUNDAY, APRIL 24TH 2016 AT 8 PM. The performance will have ENGLISH SURTITLES.
The text doesn't open with witches, the supernatural forces are not important anymore. The history of violence has no end, blood only leads to new murders and each new circle is worse than the one before. Crimes follow each other in a vicious circle. Monolouges are radically shortened, there is no time to doubt or to reflect. Müller shows no one in a positive light. Even Shakespeare's good king Duncan at the start of third act sits on a throne of cadavers. Macbeth is a cruel tyrant continuing the work of a previous cruel tyrant.
Performing in Heiner Müller’s Macbeth after Shakespeare (translation by Milan Štefe and directed by Ivica Buljan, a co-production of Mini teater Ljubljana, Cankarjev dom and Novo kazalište Zagreb) will be: Marko Mandić, Milena Zupančič, Miha Rodman, Domen Valič, Jure Henigman, Jurij Drevenšek/uskok Nik Škrlec, Jose and Anže Zevnik. Dramaturg of the performance is Diana Koloini, set design is by son:DA, costume design by Ana Savić Gecan, composer is Mitja Vrhovnik Smrekar, choreographer Tanja Zgonc and producer of the performance Robert Waltl.
Heiner Müller's text directed by Ivica Buljan is recipient of several international awards - the Grand Prix Award for best performance as a whole, theAward For Best Actor for Marko Mandić and theAward For Young Actor for Jure Henigman at Maribor Theatre Festival in 2009, recipient of theAward from Cuban Critics And Writers For Best Foreign Performance.
Macbeth after Shakespeare has already guest performed in many important international festivals in the USA (LaMaMa Theatre, New York), Cuba (International Theatre Festival Havana, South Korea (Theatre Olympics, Seoul), Portugal (Almada Festival), Serbia (Centar za kulturnu dekontaminaciju Beograd),Croatia (Zagrebačko kazalište mladih) and Slovenia (44th Maribor Theatre Festival).
The performance gained also massive positive critic response. After guest performance in New York’s LaMaMa Theatre in 2011, Randy Grener, a renowned critic, theoretic and professor described Macbeth after Shakespeare as "stunning"and "a revelation" declaring it as the top 10 theatres of 2011. ‘’This is unquestionably the greatest and most explosive performance of a roaring wreck of a hero /…/ Extremely physical, muscular and loud, Buljan’s minimal production places Macbeth in a bleak, bloody and amoral wasteland where violence begets violence with no end in sight.''
“What’s most fascinating about this staging (and, I have to say, because it was in Slovenian, I have no idea of the extent to which Müller “adapted” Shakespeare’s actual lines) is the way in which, just as Müller de-Shakespeared Shakespeare, Buljan re-Shakespeares Müller. Or at least, the text is played the least like any staging of Heiner Müller I have ever seen, and at the same time makes a pretty recognisable Macbeth. Of course, part of this comes from the fact that the text is no longer in German. Even when translated into English, Müller’s poetry retains a certain chilly rigidity. Rendered into Slovenian, it gains a violence and heat that I’ve never heard in his work before. As with Damned Be The Traitor of His Homeland (also Slovenians directed by a Croatian, interestingly) you notice the capacity for the Slovenian language to sustain violent outbursts, or prolonged shouting, in ways that English (or Portuguese, I’d say) simply doesn’t. Added to this is – again, particularly noticeable in the wake of Damned... – the enviable physicality of the performers.” Andrew Haydon, critic of The Guardian
“Macbeth relies on the male energy of young actors supported with experience of two actresses. It unleashes them into the gladiator arena where a fight for life or death is taking place.’’the jury of the 44th Maribor Theatre Festival
‘’Soldiers bravely enter the scene while ecstatically and with great skill stay in character. Their scenes of lust don’t appear sacrilegious but deeply aesthetically united. So much so the illusion of reality vanishes. The minimalistic costumes designed by Ana Savić Gecan and thrilling music by Mitja Vrhovnik Smrekar leave an even more powerful mark on the audience.’’ Nenad Obradović, www.e-novine.com
