About the performance
What happens on the other side of the world when a butterfly flaps its wings?
The performance "One Last Sleep" draws from childhood naivety, expectations, promises, and an inexhaustible, fearless desire for every tomorrow—because every tomorrow will be better than today. Whatever happens today, we still have tomorrow. Whatever breaks today, we can fix tomorrow. Whatever we lose today, we can find again tomorrow. "One Last Sleep" captures the relentless power of hope, which can't be overwhelmed by the struggles of today. Yet, at the same time, it is this empty hope—postponing hollow promises to the next day—that prevents us from stopping for a moment, calming ourselves, looking around, standing still in the present moment, savoring it and accepting it, before we rush into the promised tomorrow. All the moments of the past we’ve experienced were made up of fragments of intentional and random decisions that, in their intertwining and sequence, shaped our today, our tomorrow. But what would happen if, instead of Winnie-the-Pooh, we read Jack and the Beanstalk as children? What would we believe, and what kind of life would we live if fairy tales never had happy endings and if good didn’t always conquer evil? Would our lives and future unfold differently if we had shared our first kiss with someone else? If we had earned our first scar on another part of our body? If fairy tales had not escorted us into peaceful sleep but instead confronted us with the reality in which we now live? Would we even have a childhood? And if we didn’t have a childhood, could we even have a future?
In an age of information overload, blurred boundaries between facts and fiction, the consumer-driven hyperproduction, and the relentless chase for tomorrow—plans for the future, thoughts of the future, and all the possibilities the future holds and closes off—the crucial moment is the present. The present that never is. The present that, as soon as it happens, slips away, evades us, passes, and flows into the field of the past. The present in which there is no space for small stories and small people. The present in which there is no time for the present, because we’re already rushing into the future. So, how can we capture the present, stop in it, feel it, and understand how it came to be, and with these very elements of its fragments—out of which it was constructed—find new mechanisms to build a bridge between the present and the future?
“One Last Sleep” arises from the desire to explore, understand, and pursue the past and its cracks, in which fears, pains, games, memories, and moments gone by, have settled. Through the process of reconstruction, which involves reworking and reinterpreting past, established, popular, or even over-chewed and neglected stories, moments, memories, and experiences, the performance seeks a key for confronting the present, reality, and future. Reconstruction as a process represents a possibility of reparations for the unseen, forgotten, unnoticed, lost—and at the same time represents the potential to build and give meaning to the new, the future—something different. The reconstruction of fragments of melancholic nostalgia offers an entry into the rewriting of stories that might deserve a different beginning, a different ending, a different future. What are the bedtime stories we can tell ourselves today? Do fairy tales exist that do not lie, deceive, or sell empty promises? Could these perhaps be children’s plays for adults?
“One Last Sleep”, through the principle of the "butterfly effect," explores the chaos of memories that remain behind us—in us—and seeks that butterfly flap of wings in our pasts—in us—that caused the hurricane of our present. That butterfly flap of wings that will become the hurricane of our future. Can we trigger a hurricane on the other side of the world when we flap our wings in the performance? Can theater flap its wings and impact the world?
Varja Hrvatin
Director's note
The performance One Last Sleep will take us back to our childhoods. What soothed and lulled us to sleep? What stories made us go to sleep? What lullabies? Was there always a light on in the hallway? Or was it just the flicker of the TV screen under the door? What fears were lurking under the bed?
Through an exploration of the evening rituals of lulling to sleep, the performance will recall events and stories that soothed us as children. Stories that simplified and ordered our everyday lives and made a chaotic world manageable again. In this way, we knew that the world we lived in was governed by very clear rules that had very clear consequences. Then, over the years, suddenly, without us even noticing, the world went out of control.
Through the process of reconstruction, by reliving moments that once soothed us, we try to understand how they worked and whether they have stayed with us over the decades. Do these rituals from our past have anything in common with the ways of chasing away the fears that hide in the dark corners of our rooms today?
"Just before I fall asleep, I often feel like I'm falling. Then, at the last moment, before I fall into a deep sleep, I shiver and wake up. I feel like I am really falling. I am falling into a sleep that may be so deep that, after falling into it, I will never pick myself up again. Let's just go to sleep one more time and everything will be different. Let's just go to sleep one more time and everything will be as it should be. Let's just go to sleep one more time, and we'll all live in a postcard."
Jernej Potočan
About the director
Jernej Potočan (1996) started his studies in dramaturgy in 2015 and later in 2019 he started his studies in directing at AGRFT Ljubljana. As a dramaturg he has worked on the plays Under construction, 410 kilometrov, Anatomija zamolka, Kot vsa svobodna dekleta, Polenta, Medtem, ko mi spotify po meri ustvarja playlisto z naslovom moodymix. For the latter two, he also signs the director's credits. In addition to these two productions, he also directed the children's play Vampirček gre v šolo, and worked as assistant director on the 1981 production of Ujvideka Szinhaz (dir. Tomi Janežič). The production Under Construction, in which he worked, was awarded the Special Jury Prize at the 52nd Slovenian Drama Week. He is also a playwright. Three of his texsts have been published (Odpad, Vsaka pesem se enkrat izpoje, Žalostinke). He received the Grossman Prize for his short script Živalski vrt, the Second Prize of the One Minute Play Contest for his text Ostali smo brez prijateljev, zbirali smo znamke, and the Red Thread Prize for his text Žalostinke. Two of his texts have also been staged (Žalostinke - MGL and Uspavanka v sobi brez oken - collaboration between AG and AGRFT).
