Screening of Cement

Guided tour of the screening by Sebastijan Horvat and Milan Ramšak Marković

Age recommendation: 15+

Director Sebastijan Horvat
Translator Boris Perić
Adaptation and dramaturgy Milan Ramšak Marković
Set designer Igor Vasiljev
Costume designer Belinda Radulović
Composer Drago Ivanuša
Lighting designer Aleksandar Čavlek
Stage movement Ana Kreitmeyer
Assistant set designer Tamara Pavković
Assistant costume designer Marta Žegura
Assistant dramaturges Petra Pleše, Marija Androić
Stage manager Milica Sinkauz

Cast
Gleb Chumalov Rakan Rushaidat
Dasha Chumalova Nataša Kopeč
Badyin, Locksmith Sreten Mokrović
Sergei Ivagin, Gromada, Cossack Ugo Korani
Kleist, Old man Pjer Meničanin
Loshak, Chibis, Officer Dado Ćosić
Polya Mehova Barbara Prpić
Motya Petra Svrtan
Avdotya Milica Manojlović
Lisaveta, Secretary Tina Orlandini
Borshchy, Machinist Milivoj Beader
Dimitri Ivagin, Savchuk, Cossack Vedran Živolić
Makar, Accordion player Mateo Videk
Alexei, Cossack Toma Medvešek

ABOUT THE PRODUCTION

This is the first Croatian staging of Cement, a play by the famous German dramatist Heiner Müller who adapted a classic of Soviet socialist realism, Fyodor Gladkov’s novel of the same title. According to Sebastijan Horvat, the director of the staging, Cement is one of the greatest love stories in the history of world drama. The protagonist, Gleb Chumalov, returns home after several years of civil war and October Revolution, and finds himself in a cement factory which is abandoned and remains empty and inoperative despite many years of revolutionary aspirations to take over private property. His homecoming is also his return to his wife and their child. But his feelings are not reciprocated. His wife is in love: her new love is Revolution, her body and heart are sealed off, and their child soon dies of starvation. From this moment on, Gleb has two goals: to convince the new authorities to allow the workers to rebuild the cement factory which could operate better and produce more than before, and to win back the heart of his suddenly emancipated wife. Cement is a love letter at a crucial time of rupture between the old and the radically new. The grim image of raw power reflects the belief that this is the way it must be, whatever the monstrous consequences, and that our future, the future of humanity, is precisely this breaking point, or else there may not be any future at all.

Zagreb Youth Theatre presents a recording of the performance

CEMENTFEST Festival