Persona

Mini teater Ljubljana
21. 10. 2010, 20.00 // OLD HALL - STARA DVORANA
Running time 1 hour 50 minutes. No interval

Opening
5. & 6. 6. 2010 Mini teater Ljubljana

Adapted and directed by Janez Pipan
Costume designer Rosana Knavs
Set designer Ana Rahela Klopčič
Music by Aldo Kumar
Lighting designer Andrej Hajdinjak
Language consultant Jože Volk
Stage choreographer Branko Završan

Cast
Sister Alma Janja Majzelj
Miss Vogler Polona Juh/Pia Zemljič
The Doctor Jožica Avbelj
Him Branko Završan
The jigsaw man Anže Kreč

Bergman’s Persona is a drama of conflict. Two voices, one talkative and the other virtually non-existent and communicated through the fi rst voice, struggle with life, each in its own way. Elisabet Vogler talks only twice, uttering two short sentences, of these only one of her own will. She refuses to respond to the world that forces her to assume roles. This is ironic, since Elisabet is an actress, one who creates and assumes roles and personifies characters. She is one who pretends: A dramatis persona. Alma (soul), a nurse, is her opposite. Little by little, she verbalizes everything that weighs on her soul until she feels that the silence surrounding her is increasingly suffocating her. Their dilemma is an artist’s dilemma: whether to persist with verbalization, piling up images (allegories) and ever searching for new words while knowing that it is impossible to express fi nitude, or to stop creating and thus stop being what you are, precisely because you are aware that reality cannot be recreated. Neither Elisabet nor Alma, such as they are, is satisfi ed with what she is. Elisabet silently studies her talkative nurse, while Alma more than once expresses her wish to be Elisabet. This interplay of roles raises questions not only about their real identities, but also about reality as such.