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Anton Pavlovič Čehov

Ivanov

Original title: Иванов

Director

Aleksandar Popovski

Opening night

12 January 2019
Main Stage

Duration:

200 minutes inc. intervals

Creators

Creative team

TRANSLATOR

Tatjana Stanič

Drama Igralec: Tatjana Stanič | odpri ustvarjalca

DRAMATURG

Darja Dominkuš

Drama Igralec: Darja Dominkuš | odpri ustvarjalca

SET DESIGNER

Meta Hočevar

Drama Igralec: Meta Hočevar | odpri ustvarjalca

COSTUME DESIGNER

Barbara Podlogar

Drama Igralec: Barbara Podlogar | odpri ustvarjalca

COMPOSER

Marjan Nečak

Drama Igralec: Marjan Nečak | odpri ustvarjalca

LANGUAGE CONSULTANT AND CONSULTANT FOR RUSSIAN LANGUAGE

Tatjana Stanič

Drama Igralec: Tatjana Stanič | odpri ustvarjalca

LIGHTING DESIGNER

Metod Novak

Drama Igralec: Metod Novak | odpri ustvarjalca

ASSISTANT DIRECTOR

Juš Zidar

Drama Igralec: Juš Zidar | odpri ustvarjalca

ASSISTANT SET DESIGNER

Sara Slivnik

Drama Igralec: Sara Slivnik | odpri ustvarjalca

ASSISTANT COSTUME DESIGNER

Lovro Ivančić

Drama Igralec: Lovro Ivančić | odpri ustvarjalca

ASSISTANT SET DESIGNER (STUDENT)

Nastja Miheljak

Drama Igralec: Nastja Miheljak | odpri ustvarjalca

Cast

Uroš FürstDrama Igralec: Uroš Fürst | odpri igralca

Nikolai Alexeyevitch Ivanov, perpetual member of the Council of Peasant Affairs

Polona JuhDrama Igralec: Polona Juh | odpri igralca

Anna Petrovna, his wife, neé Sarah Abramson

Gregor BakovićDrama Igralec: Gregor Baković | odpri igralca

Matvei Semyonovitch Shabelski, a count, uncle of Ivanov

Igor SamoborDrama Igralec: Igor Samobor | odpri igralca

Pavel Kirelitch Lebedev, president of the Board of the Zemstvo

Iva BabićDrama Igralec: Iva Babić | odpri igralca

Zinaida Savishna, his wife

Mia Skrbinac

Sasha, their daughter, twenty years old

Timon ŠturbejDrama Igralec: Timon Šturbej | odpri igralca

Yevgheni Konstantinovitch Lvov, a young government doctor

Maruša MajerDrama Igralec: Maruša Majer | odpri igralca

Marfa Yehorovna Babakina, a young widow, owner of an estate, daughter of a rich merchant

Rok ViharDrama Igralec: Rok Vihar | odpri igralca

Dmitri Nikytitch Kosykh, an exciseman

Jurij ZrnecDrama Igralec: Jurij Zrnec | odpri igralca

Mihail Mihailovitch Borkin, a distant relative of Ivanov and manager of his estate

Saša PavčekDrama Igralec: Saša Pavček | odpri igralca

Avdotia Nazarovna, an old woman

Valter DraganDrama Igralec: Valter Dragan | odpri igralca

First guest

Matija RozmanDrama Igralec: Matija Rozman | odpri igralca

Second guest

Zvone HribarDrama Igralec: Zvone Hribar | odpri igralca

Third guest

Vanja PlutDrama Igralec: Vanja Plut | odpri igralca

Praskovya, a servant of Lebedev

Ivanov (1887) is an early play by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov. When it was written, it mystified the audience as well as the critics, used to a clear-cut characterisation and unambiguous genre rules. Chekhov, in many ways a forerunner and pioneer of contemporary playwriting, turned all the rules upside down. Comical, sometimes even grotesque elements and characters are intertwined with unhappy destinies, botched lives and tragic components.
Chekhov observed his main protagonist and his environment both as an artist and a doctor, interested primarily in the fields of psychiatry and ethical questions. His hero’s »diagnoses« seem surprising familiar and contemporary: burnout, defeatism, weariness, ennui of a once brilliant educated man, entrepreneurial and charismatic idealist. In addition to depression, Ivanov has financial troubles, and is borrowing money from loan sharks, while his conjuring employees keep unnerving him and destroying his assets and reputation. Above all, he is plagued by guilt over his sick wife, whom he is unable to support emotionally, given that he has long since stopped loving her. His new romantic relationship with a daughter of rich landowners is therefore marked from the very start by his own feelings of guilt and general disapproval. However, Ivanov is his own harshest judge, ruthlessly analysing himself all the time, quarrying his thoughts and emotions to understand better what has happened to him and how he drove himself to the very edge of sanity. And yet, even on the edge, he is still capable of solving his position radically. This is why Ivanov ̶ despite, or precisely because of ̶ his »fallacy«, is considered one of the greatest characters of world drama, one of those »procrastinators« holding a mirror to themselves and the entire society because of their uncompromising ethical principles.

In Ivanov, Chekhov says that women corrupt the human race and that they are soon to be held responsible for giving birth to moaners and psychopaths only. In another one of his plays, a group of drunk and disillusioned men in a street cafe start a smart debate about the greatest evil in the world being women, not wars. When we now try to re-define male-female relationships and set up new standards of mutual communication, desired and simultaneously feared, Chekhov sounds incredibly exciting. He portrays male incompetence, weakness, fear, indecisiveness, and female desire for active love. The more one has to invest into love for a miserable man, the better it is, believes young Sasha in reply to Ivanov’s doubts. A primal male-female relationship is at the very core of Ivanov, offers a possibility for an in-depth exploration and verification of our contemporary »liberal« and »conservative« standpoints. Is a woman truly the greatest evil, or is love the only solution?

Aleksandar Popovski

Awards

2019

The Žaromet (Spotlight) award for the best performance of the theatre season 2018/19 Media24

Goran Merkaš Prize for best theatre poster at the 6th Theatre Posters Biennial in Varaždin, Croatia

Sponsors

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