Now or never!

10 November 2014 | DCS2014

ALEKSANDRA ZEC

HKD Theatre International Small Scene Theatre Festival (Rijeka)
ALEKSANDRA ZEC
Author and director: Oliver Frljić

Is there a place, where children cry delight,
A father has a daughter – son, a mother?
Where even dreaded death is calm, and white,
With lilies for farewell, placed by a brother?
Ivan Goran Kovačić: The Pit

Aleksandra Zec (1979-1991) was a pupil in a Zagreb primary school at Trešnjevka when she and her mother Marija were killed on Sljeme by five members of the then reserve force of the Ministry of the Interior of the Republic of Croatia. This production is a memorial to that girl and is dedicated to every child war victim.

Over twenty years after, the name of Aleksandra Zec is still a demarcation line in Croatian society. On one side are those lamenting over the judicial farce which has set free the identified murderers regardless of all the admissions and material evidence. On the other are those for whom Aleksandra Zec serves only to establish a difference between „our“ and „their“ victims, demonstrating that the predominant mental matrix of the Patriotic War has not moved far away from his victimological dichotomy. This production has tried to do somethnig else. It has tried to see how much the Croatian society, eighteen years after the war, and with the exception of long-term media exploitation, is ready to deal with what is for it, truly and symbolically, the fate of the Zec family. As in Antigone, we still stumble over too many bodies which have not won the right to be buried.

Oliver Frljić

Oliver Frljić graduated in philosophy and culture of religion; then in theatre and radio direction in Zagreb. Ever since his student days he has been attracting public attention with his work in theatre and has staged over sixty theatre projects in the region and other countries. His regional success has won him the unofficial title of a direction star. His theatre pieces, Turbofolk, Damned be the traitor of his homeland! and Zoran Đinđić have already been presented to audiences of Desiré Festival with great success. Aleksandra Zec is a logical sequel in his preoccupation with political topics.

HKD Theatre International Small Scene Theatre Festival is an association of theater artists founded in 1993 by actor Nenad Šegvić and director Lary Zappia, in order to provide Rijeka with an alternative theatre repertoire based on 20th century classics and successful contemporary dramas never played before in Croatian.

Directed by Oliver Frljić
Dramaturge Marin Blažević

Performers
Jelena Lopatić, Mirta Polanović, Tanja Smoje, Igor Kovač, Nikola Nedić, Jurica Marčec and girls: Jana Mileusnić, Lucija Filičić, Nina Batinić & Morana Mladić – members of the Rijeka-based ZiM (Zajc i Malik) theater workshop

Set design Ljerka Hribar
Costume design Sandra Dekanić
Lighting design Dalibor Fugošić
Lighting technician Marjan Zeneral Šubić
Sound design Ivan Harej
Assistant to director Denis Kirinčić
Stage manager Renata Fugošić

Supported by
The City of Rijeka, Department of Culture; Primorsko-Goranska County; the Serbian National Council for the City of Zagreb; Ministry of Culture (CRO)

Our thanks goes to Documenta – Centre for Dealing with the Past, Zagreb

55’

hkd-teatar.com

1 December 2014 7.00 pm – Jadran Stage

photo: Petar Fabijan