First Slovene production of the adaptation
Opening night:
17th April 2010
Adaptor Vito Taufer
Translator Borut Kraševec
Director Vito Taufer
Dramaturg Darja Dominkuš
Set designer Žiga Kariž
Costume designer Nina Jagodic
Composer Andrej Goričar
Language consultant Tatjana Stanič
Light designer Pascal Mérat
Assistant set desiner Barbara Kapelj Osredkar
Assistant costume designer Erna Ostanek
Cast:
Nataša Barbara Gračner - Anna Petrovna, young widow to General Voynitzev
Saša Tabaković - Sergei Voynitzev, son by General Voynitzev's first wife
Barbara Cerar - Sofya Yegorovna, wife to Sergei
Aleš Valič k.g. - Porfiri Glagolyev neighbour, landowner
Uroš Fürst - Kiril Glagoljev, his son
Valter Dragan - Gerasim Petrin, wealthy merchant
Saša Mihelčič - Maria Grekova, chemistry student, twenty
Andrej Nahtigal - Colonel Ivan Triletsky
Bojan Emeršič - Nikolai Triletsky, doctor, son of Colonel Triletsky
Ivo Ban - Abraham Vengerovich 1, Jewish businessman
Tom Ban k.g. - Isak Vengerovich, Abraham's son, a student
Jurij Zrnec - Timofei Bugrov, merchant
Marko Mandić - Mikhail Vasilievich Platonov, schoolteacher
Maša Derganc - Sasha Ivanovna, wife to Platonov, daughter of Ivan Triletsky
Matevž Müller AGRFT - Osip, horse-thief
Tina Vrbnjak - Katya, maid to Voynitzcevs
Andrej Zalesjak AGRFT - Yakov, servant
Vito Weis AGRFT - Marko, servant
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov wrote Platonov while he was still a student of medicine.The play did not have a title and was only discovered after his death; it was published as A Play Without a Title in 1923. Due to its length (the original text is around 160 pages and would run about eight hours), the play is usually performed in adapted form, often titled after the main character Platonov. A Play Without a Title is probably most interesting as a kind of “Chekhov before Chekhov”.Whereas the more familiar Chekhov usually “abolishes” the character of the hero, or else casts “life itself” as the protagonist, with individual characters as its prisoners, Platonov has quite a few melodramatic features. One summer, Platonov, an allegedly happily married provincial schoolmaster, becomes involved (almost against his will) in several love affairs at once. His lovers include General Voynitzev’s young widow (a landowner) and her stepson’s wife. Out of some desperate mischievousness he also flirts with other girls. All this eventually leads to a shooting.Yet the play doesn’t cast Platonov as a Don Juan. Rather, he is more of a Hamlet, unable to take a decision and thereby to liberate himself of a world ruled by common interests and seemingly frivolous carelessness, a world without any meaning and purpose.