Singer: TAIBELE

"Taibele and Her Demon" is one of the most beautiful love stories written for theatre in the 20th century. Fairy tale-like and cruel, this drama enchants with its archaic and witty language. Loaded with ambiance of passion and sensuality, shameless at moments, it resembles a modern allegory about the demon of love and subtle erotic yearning in a patriarchal world full of religious taboos. Through his protagonists Singer speaks in the language of Scheherazade from Thousand and One Night or the language of some ancient rabbi from Talmud. Apart from the beauty of the language, Singer unravels in a dramatic way some unpredictable paradoxes of feminine sensuality, as well as bloody and perverse darkness of the male libido and vanity.

Elements of fantasticality and psychoanalysis shape a poetic world extremely enticing for acting and attractive for watching. "In the beginning there was the word, and the word was the lie..." The quoted sentence sublimes in itself Isaac Bashevis Singer's masterly written story, that simply seduces with the magic of the word, speaking through the guise of archaism, with deep understanding of male psychology, and of life's delusions and illusions of those ready to believe the Word. Singer's storytelling skills are reflected in the unexpected volte-faces as well as in subtle humour, which all make his story additionally appealing for the theatre.

In the creation of the character of Alhonon, who offers possibilities for transformation from a sickly village man of learning into a powerful demon of sexuality and destructive passions, actor Damir Orliæ has realized one of the best roles of his career. Savin's "Taibele and Her Demon" is a classical play that is in the first place captivating due to the actors' creations, and is a good example of theatre adaptation of fiction, respecting the author in each of its segments.