Christmas at the Ivanovs’

Slovene National Theatre Drama Ljubljana / SNG Drama Ljubljana

Original title Ёлка у Ивановых

Première 18. 01. 2013 Small Stage, SNG Drama Ljubljana

Running time 1 hour and 25 minutes without an interval.

Translator Drago Bajt
Director, Stage Designer and Music Selector Oliver Frljić
Dramaturg Eva Kraševec
Language Consultant Tatjana Stanič
Costume Designer Sandra Dekanić
Lighting Designer Milan Podlogar
Assistant Dramaturg (student) Nataša Berce
Assistant Stage Designer (student) Adriana Furlan

Cast
Iva Babić
Barbara Cerar
Silva Čušin
Maša Derganc
Petra Govc
Nina Ivanišin
Sabina Kogovšek Zrnec
Maja Sever
Nina Valič
Tina Vrbnjak
Barbara Žefran

A grotesque-tragic farce and parody of the seemingly rational bourgeois world in which logic turns into illogic and rationality into absurdity. In Vvedensky’s perspective, the traditional anticipation of the Christmas tree, along with all the nice, quiet, family, and idyllic atmosphere that accompanies it, is turned into it’s opposite which brings at first unexpected elements of anxiety and "unfamiliarity” that gradually become inscribed both in the play and in the historical time. The scenes don’t follow the causal logic; normalcy is erased through dialogues, relations between characters, and the discrepancy between the verbal and the visual: Animals talk, father and mother make love by an open coffin. Some characters sing instead of speaking, a head talks to the body from which it has been cut off … The staging of Christmas at the Ivanovs’ raises the question of the nature of our resistance and in which way theatre today can articulate its shout for freedom. For our present is certainly different and yet creepily similar to the 1930s. Our actual zeitgeist dictates wakefulness and concrete actions.

Foto: Peter Uhan

Foto: Peter Uhan

Foto: Peter Uhan

Foto: Peter Uhan