May, 8th 2001
Filodrammatica
Argosytours, Dubrovnik – Croatia

Esther Vilar: SHE POPE

The inaugural television speech of the newly elected woman pope in the year 2034

Directed by: Ozren Prohić

Cast:
She-pope: Jasna Ančić
Translated and produced by: Andrija Seifried
Stage and costumes: Dubravka Lošić

The German-Argentine writer Esther Vilar is a provocative author and critic of society. Her work has been both greatly praised and negatively evaluated. In 1982 Vilar wrote the ‘American She Pope”, which shortly after being premiered in Zurich starts playing on numerous stages throughout Europe. From the programme booklet

With the inquisitiveness of an intellectual, Esther Vilar questions,, examines, and actualises the position and role of woman in the Catholic Church, as well as her attitude to religion, the remnants of history and contemporaneity. This is an interesting, wetland knowingly written text, representing the inaugural television speech of the first woman pope elected in 2034. The she-pope uses fragments of her speech for her personal inauguration, but none the less for the sake of voicing her intimate vital and religious alibis.
With no superfluous gestures, calmly and professionally, Jasna Andi succeeds in interpreting the fate of a woman facing the blank pages of a future time that will some day become history…
Prohić has created a stylistically dear, precise and communicative performance which, due to the acting abilities of Jasna Ančić, is watched and followed with interest.
Davor Mojaš in Vijenac

This is an extremely strange piece of theatre… It represents a kind of futuristic incursion into the superstitions of Christianity. An invasion by which Jasna Ančić has once again proved that on stage there is nothing she cannot do.
Anatolij Kudrjavcev in Slobodna Dalmacija