Tragic Miniatures for Adults by Blaž Lukan, 30/08/2005/DELO
The Belarus director Alexei Liliauski made his words become true: the so called 'small tragedies' by Pushkin were put on stage in a production juncture between the tragic and the comic, or in other words, between the dramatic and the humorous; this is a humour which is still able to express the entire plastic of the romantic literature, i.e. substance that has already been covered by time, but above all the new, modern and time-adequate staging of the same motives. In this way, these somehow tragic miniatures performed by Mini Teater artists gained a new tone and (thanks to expressive puppets) also a new image …
The Dark Abysses of Romanticism by Andrej Jaklič, 01.09.2005/SLOVENSKE NOVICE
… Leliauski with his original approach in directing builds mainly in direction of a grotesque, yet at the same time, he also uses different puppet techniques and different principles; with actors Gašper Jarni, Marko Plantan and Igor Štamulak he is discovering a practically unlimited interpretation spectrum within the puppet theatre …
Suggestive puppet miniatures , yet perhaps a bit too dramatic …
by Uroš Samsek, 27/08/2005/ VEČER
… Already the first tragedy The Feast in the Time of the Plague appears to be extremely suggestive: on the small Mini Teater stage three actors - acting as the most refined waiters - are serving at the large table of almost petrified puppet characters, they animate them (with true accuracy and skill and most convincing), they lend them their voices – as a rule one is animating while the other is interpreting the character's voice. Mozart and Salieri in Gašper Jarni's interpretation is dramatically stormy; the tragedy reaches its point in the multiplication of Mozart's torso sculpture. The Stingy Knight provides us – in spite of its tragic content – with a lot of comic issues, mainly thanks to the puppet material and to Igor Štamulak's interpretation. The Stone Guest brings a surprise through its convincing graveyard scenery. The performance is upgraded also by the hypnotically ambiental and powerful original music infiltrating almost the entire development of the performance…
Alexei Leliauski: Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin: Small Tragedies
by Peter Karba, 30.08.2005/ RADIO STUDENT
