Dear audience members, dear theatre makers,

When I read the managing and artistic director’s editorial last year, I never imagined that I would be writing the next one myself. Even now, I still find it hard to believe that I, of all people, have the privilege of leading an institution as important as the SNT Drama Ljubljana and contributing to its history. I am deeply proud and grateful that we will share a period of time together. And this period will be anything but routine.

First of all: we are still based at Litostrojska 56, the venue that is interesting, but temporary. Both aspects deserve emphasis; the premises truly are remarkable, but at the same time, we are without a proper home. The contrast between the raw industrial setting and the gentleness of a repertory theatre is, well, let me put it this way… dramatic. Velvet curtains, our authentic seats, prefabricated wooden stands, staircases, and a stage portal framed by concrete columns and metal structures. There is something inspiring and something frustrating about this sense of displacement. And there is something exciting, yet also exhausting, about the fact that theatre makers as well as audiences must navigate an industrial zone to reach the theatre. Indeed, it is so interesting that this temporary transformation of a factory into a theatre has been recognised as one of Europe’s outstanding architectural achievements and shortlisted for the Mies van der Rohe Award.

As we are creative and theatre makers, we have already settled into every nook and cranny of this unusual building. Performances spill into the foyers, other events into the Drama Café; rehearsals take place in rehearsal rooms, offices, and foyers. Audiences occasionally take part in backstage tours, drama school students are constantly underfoot, and, to our delight, there seem to be more of them every day. It is far from ideal; we have nearly 2,000 square metres less space than before, we vie with one another for room, and constantly trip over cables, props, costumes, and each other  ̶  but, yes, it is creative, and we refuse to give up. Since we are no longer located in the city centre, artists and audiences now mingle in the Drama Café before and after performances together. The displacement from the centre of the city and its pulses has changed the way we socialise. We have embraced the nature of this venue and our current circumstances in the best way we possibly know: by creating.

What truly weighs on us is uncertainty. We have been in this transitional process for a really long time. And yet we still do not know how much longer it will last. For thirty years, we have all agreed that the old theatre house is no longer adequate. Ten years ago, we agreed on the renovation project we would support and on the vision of our state-of-the-art theatre. But much can change in ten years. What once seemed state-of-the-art already feels outdated. We are now entering the third season in our temporary home. Time passes quickly. Meanwhile, the old building continues to deteriorate in our absence.

For a while, everything unfolded according to plan: we moved, the audiences followed us, the machinery hummed, a tree was felled, Roman remains surfaced, everything was under control until suddenly it was not. What should be a rational decision has become entangled with emotions: political and transnational interests, public opinion, professional debates, neighbourhood concerns, city politics, personal fears. And then there are us, for whom Drama is not merely a workplace but, however sentimental it may sound, a home.

Uncertainty will most likely define the coming year. Our own small world of uncertainty exists within a much larger world shaped by the same condition. And it is precisely this wider uncertainty that we wish to explore in the forthcoming season, alongside with its counterpart: security, predictability, order. We want to reflect on our attempts to preserve the illusion of safety and control: control over life, over fate, over the planet itself. About humanity’s attempt to maintain the feeling that it is the master of the planet. That it can do anything, if only it decides to. And that it can fix any mistake. That nothing can stop us. We are the most adaptable and intelligent beings. We are powerful. But we are still fallible and mortal. And we are afraid. Umberto Eco said that we make lists because we are afraid of dying. Here is my safety list for this season; for another year of life, one step at a time:

September. Iranian Conference by Russian dissident Ivan Vyrypaev, directed by Nina Rajić Kranjac, questions our right to shape the world in our own image. This Can’t Happen to Us, a stage adaptation of Bettina Wilpert’s controversial novel directed by Eva Nina Lampič, examines the objectivity of our memory and the ways we reshape facts to make life easier to endure.

October. The Hundred We Are by Swedish author Jonas Hassen Khemiri, a co-production with Ptuj City Theatre, directed by Peter Petkovšek, explores women’s sense of self: can we still define ourselves as a single, coherent identity, and how many selves do we carry within us? Ivana Before the Sea, based on Veronika Simoniti’s Kresnik Prize-winning novel and directed by Lucija Trobec in a co-production with AGRFT, explores family heritage and the question of whether the world truly begins with us, and whether we can live without the baggage of our family history.

November. Carlo Goldoni’s Villeggiatura Trilogy, directed by Diego de Brea, mocks our urge to bury our heads in the sand and endlessly pursue fleeting pleasures. Some things, it seems, never change.

January. changes by Maja Zade, a co-production with Prešeren Theatre Kranj, directed by Jan Krmelj, asks how much suffering we create for ourselves by complicating our relationships. My World Is Disappearing Slowly by Olga Dimitrijević, directed by Bojana Lazić, explores the possibility of revolution and whether the future belongs only to the young. Do older generations still have a right to the future, or only to memory?

February. SVN, a new play by Milan Ramšak Marković inspired by the Romanian film RMN and directed by Sebastijan Horvat, takes us to the fictional Dolenjska village of Slavinje and offers a voyeuristic glimpse into the façade of a harmonious Slovenian idyll. Eugène Ionesco’s The Chairs, co-created by director Luka Marcen and actors Bojan Emeršič and Gregor Baković, revisits the relationship of Vladimir and Estragon who were, 25 years ago, waiting for Godot in a legendary production directed by Dušan Jovanović, and shows us what remains of them in the end.

April. Sisyphus, a precarious cabaret based on texts by Maša Pelko and directed by Juš Zidar, gives a voice to young people on their way into middle age, those for whom, in an aging world, there is no place in society. Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, directed by Nina Šorak, tells the story of a sinking ship while the orchestra keeps playing.

May. I will not reveal that part just yet as it is part of the next season and the next programme brochure.

Come. Watch the performances, ours and those of our guests. Join us for talks and concerts. Spend time with us and among us. Wherever we may be, we will do our best to surprise you.

Yours,
Drama

Ivana Djilas

Managing and Artistic Director

SNT Drama Ljubljana