Trauma or fantasy?
Year in, year out, instead of the anticipated growth, progress and peace, the world around us is increasingly becoming an unsafe place. Television news is a continuous loop of reports on wars, mass atrocities, mindless murderers in schools and on the streets, dictators and egomaniacs hiding under the guise of democracy…
Theatre has always been the artistic response to social issues and this year’s selection, judging by the shortlisted plays as well as those that we won`t see in Rijeka, is burdened with the very reality we live – the reality of everyday trauma. I would love nothing more but to announce inspiring stories with a happy ending at this year`s festival, but reality seems to have very little left for theatre.
Oskaras Koršunovas’ The Saint is a traumatic medieval life story in a contemporary setting. It proves once more that society does not learn from its mistakes and does not change for the better. A marginalized woman – and women in general are, along with all those considered to be weaker, still marginalized today – is struggling for a life of dignity, for mere survival, in a society where empathy is seen as a common weakness, just ask one of the most powerful people in the world.
Gavella’s production of Matišić’s and Taufer’s Monsters is at the same time a theatrical showdown with personal demons (as if social traumas weren`t bad enough) and a cry against the collective pain and injustice.
Given that the novel was published only in 1966, twenty-six years after the author’s death, The Master and Margarita long since ceased to be Bulgakov’s secret clash with the trauma of Stalinism. Thanks to the current state of affairs, they have outgrown the explicit dimension of dictatorship and gained a much broader, social one.
In his unique vision of theatre that combines a musical concert, a recital and performative art, Stanislav Habjan engages with Kafka’s trauma caused by an extremely strict father. Their relationship certainly set the tone for his prose work, one of the most important and darkest literary opuses of the 20th century. By adopting Kafka as his father, Habjan finally sets the great author free from his trauma, at least in the theatre realm.
The Doghouse uses a different voice to speak about the trauma that we ourselves went through a little over three decades ago, but prefer to stay silent about – war rape. Severe intimate trauma has morphed into a collective one, thanks to our reluctance to talk about it. The silence – which never resolves the trauma – always seems to be an easier choice.
And finally, A Rainy Day in Gurlitsch deals with the issue of identity of today’s European middle class, prone to escapism and good at keeping the traumas of our society well hidden. The protagonist descends quite unexpectedly from the comforts of his world to the bottom of human existence of his social surroundings, whose existence until that point he refused to acknowledge. The trauma caused by discovering what today’s society is really made of threatens to expose the meticulously crafted social lie of the successful, causing the system of (false) values to crumble and fall.
While announcing the festival, I also would like to evoke that utopian world, the one that Momčilo Popadić describes with the verse “What is life, but a fantasy”. Life today has unfortunately become a dystopia, a far cry from the beautiful fantasy that we never stop calling for, hoping for.
So, is there light at the end of the tunnel after all?
Yes, there is. If not in our society, then in the theatre. The light comes from Aristotle’s definition of tragedy in which a dark, tragic story provokes catharsis – fear and pity that lead to purification. This catharsis adds meaning and purpose to the world of tragedy, but also to the world in general, and makes life – even when it seems to be mired in darkness – a healing medicine. Each of this year’s performances offers this theatrical way out of the darkness and encourages, I hope, in spite of everything – life as a fantasy.
Which may be a handful of tears, but is also a bag full of laughter!
Jasen Boko