Oliver Frljić, Agata Adamiecka-Sitek, Marta Keil
Whose National Theatre Is It? Oliver Frljić in Conversation with Marta Keil and Agata Adamiecka-Sitek
Abstract
Oliver Frljić, in conversation with Agata Adamiecka-Sitek and Marta Keil, talks about his strategy of performing institutions, giving examples from the time he ran the National Theatre in Rijeka. Referring to the elitist nature of theatre, the director talks about his attempts to move the show and the discourse accompanying it outside the theatre-company building and to use theatre as tool for triggering a broad social debate. He also cites instances of censorship he has encountered in his work. By analysing political and social entanglements of art institutions, the director wonders as to whom theatre actually belongs. The conversation took place before the premiere of Klątwa [The Curse] directed by Frljić at the Powszechny Theatre in Warsaw, and was included in the production's programme book.
Keywords
National Theatre; Institutional Critic; Critical Theater; Ideology; Aesthetics and Politics
Oliver Frljić
Croatian director and playwright. He represents European critical theater, who gives a daring discussion of complicated socio-political issues. The author of many award-winning performances in the countries of the former Yugoslavia, as well as in Graz or Düsseldorf. His productions were presented at many world festivals: Discourse Festival in Giessen, Mess in Sarajevo, Bitef in Belgrade, Dubrovnik Summer Festival, EX Ponto in Ljubljana, Dialog in Wrocław, Wiener Festwochen.
Agata Adamiecka-Sitek
(1974), graduate in cultural studies from the University of Silesia. Author of the book Teatr i tekst. Inscenizacja w teatrze postmodernistycznym (“Theatre and Text. Staging in Postmodern Theatre”, 2006) as well as several dozen essays and articles published in the magazines Dialog, Didaskalia, Teatr, Notatnik Teatralny and collected volumes. Founder and editor of two publication series – Inna Scena and Nowe Historie – and editor of numerous books on theatre. Recently led the project and was on the editorial board of the first edition of Jerzy Grotowski’s Teksty zebrane (“Collected Texts”). Works at the Zbigniew Raszewski Theatre Institute, where she manages academic projects, including a programme of research on Polish theatre from a gender and queer perspective. Research on construction of gender and sexuality in Grotowski’s theatre was also the subject of the semester-long course which she designed in 2011 for the Jerzy Grotowski Institute. Worked with Marta Górnicka on the Chorus of Women project. Teaches at the National Academy of Dramatic Art, as well as gender studies at the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences.
Marta Keil
(1983), performing-arts curator, based in Warsaw. Since 2012, she has curated together with Grzegorz Reske the fetival Theatre Confrontations – an international performing-arts festival in Lublin (www.20.konfrontacje.pl). She created and curates the East European Performing Arts Platform (www.eepap.org). Worked as curator and dramaturge with artists including Agnieszka Jakimiak, Rabih Mroué, Agata Siniarska and Ana Vujanović. In 2014 and 2015, she worked as curator at the Polski Theatre in Bydgoszcz (www.teatrpolski.pl) and co-curated the Festival of New Dramaturgies (http://www.festiwalprapremier.pl/en/). One of the initiators and curators of the Identity.Move! project (www.identitymove.eu). Editor of the book Dance, Process, Artistic Research. Contemporary Dance in the Political, Economic and Social Context of “Former East” of Europe, published in 2015. PhD student at the Polish Academy of Science’s Art Institute. She writes a blog www.fraukeil.wordpress.com.
