Dates

While apparently walking their dogs in a small park, or talking to an unseen homečess dog-owner, seemingly everyday characters keep running into each other. On four key dates, marked by four holidays between New Year's Day and Year's Eve, these chance encounters are reveled to be no coincidence. In fact, they are failed dates. An unfaithful husband is cheating on his ex-lover, now wife, who is cheating on him for revenge with a married man (who's a bit too serious about the affair). And the husband's last girlfriend is also getting involved in the melee. Not to mention the mess that the dogs are involved in. Dates is a fierce comedy about rhe double lies of our times and the faked resolutions that let us get by but not much more. Berger's style makes for a hilarious experience with intriguing and even bitter overtones. Aleš Berger is a renowned Slovene translator, appreciated for the versatility of the language in translations, such as Raymond Queneau's Zazie in the Metro and Exercises in Style, Beckett's Molloy and many others, ie. works by Emile Cioran, Paul Eluard, Apollinaire, Andre Breton and Garcia Lorca. Among his many translations for the theatre are works by Feydeau, Koltès, Claudel, Ionesco, Musset, Molière, Beckett esseys, he recently published a collection of short stories Zagatne zgodbe (Sultry Stories), 2004. Dates are his first original play.