Zagreb Youth Theatre, Zagreb, Croatia

Director Paolo Magelli
Dramaturg Željka Udovičić Pleština
Set Designers Željko Burić, Boris Greiner
Costume Designer Doris Kristić
Composer Ljupčo Konstantinov
Lighting Designer Aleksandar Čavlek
Assistant Costume Designer Marta Žegura
Assistant Directors Aleksandar Švabić, Lovro Krsnik
Assistant to the Director Tamara Damjanović

Cast
Police chief and Student Chaplain Milivoj Beader
Dora Hrvojka Begović
Mother Katarina Bistrović Darvaš
Unemployed Man: Zoran Čubrilo
Tea Nataša Dangubić
Mrs. Hortenzija Doris Šarić Kukuljica
Vlado Frano Mašković
Retired Man Pjer Meničanin
Professor Sreten Mokrović
St. Filip and Jakob Filip Nola
Barbara Barbara Prpić
Sofija Anđela Ramljak
Mrs. Durancija Urša Raukar
Melisa Lucija Šerbedžija
Igor Vedran Živolić

Ivan Vidić, one of Croatia’s most successful playwrights, won the Marin Držić Award for The Nightlife in 2014. The play deals with one’s attempts to resist an oppressive and depressing reality that is a common denominator of dissatisfied people of different generations and walks of life. The mundanity of everyday life, bereft of any future prospects and authentic human relations, combined with a loss of identity, impels people to revolt and demand changes that would enable them to take control of their own fate. But is it possible at all to hold out in this day and age? What if a revolution is only a memento gathering dust on the shelves of history? The struggle of Vidić’s protagonists resembles Sisyphean labours; sooner or later they get hit by a stone in the head. It is this very stone that Paolo Magelli is intrigued by. He wants to show and crush it.

»Paolo Magelli, the eternal European traveller, has created one of his best Croatian productions. The world première of The Nightlife by Ivan Vidić, a dismal and witty play about Croatian mentality, was a night of spectacular direction and procedures, set design and music, a display of unique ensemble acting by fifteen individuals on a par with each other.«
Tomislav Čadež, Jutranji list

Slovenian surtitles