The German Cycle – Beton Ltd.: GROSSE ERWARTUNGEN|GREAT EXPECTATIONS
The second performance of the German cycle
When creating performances, the members of the Beton Ltd. collective always draw on their own experiences, feelings, positions. Groβe Erwartungen | Great Expectations are intertwined thematically with the questioning of the positions of articulation of the members of the collective, their position in the world, and their attitude towards the audience. What to do as a white, economically relatively well off, heteronormative performer – in short, a representative of a socially privileged category to which we attribute social power, which for years has been developing theatre performances from the perspective of his/her own views and infusing them with his/her own opinions? Is he/she even allowed to articulate his/her own position anymore? Should he/she shut up and give the floor to others, those who are more entitled to speak in the eyes of society? But whose opinion is legitimate, and who’s to decide whether he/she can say it? What, after all, is a legitimate and consistent opinion? The performance intertwines the ambivalence between a strong need to extract a secret from someone and violent silencing with a passionate love for the audience. The audience that affirms time and again with its presence and applause everything that Beton Ltd. articulates on stage. A love that escalates into the usurpation of personal space and on the verge of violence.
The performance plays with banalization and likeability, also using staging procedures to flatten statements and scenes into one-dimensional, and yet intriguing moments.
For students: 5 € – for all performances of the German cycle, with prior reservation at info@bunker.si.
Concept and direction: Beton Ltd.
Performing: Katarina Stegnar, Primož Bezjak, Branko Jordan and Maksim Špelko, Janez Weiss, Jure Vlahovič
Music: VIS U$IŁ (Maksim Špelko, Janez Weiss) featuring DEAD TONGUES
Set, lighting and costume design: Toni Soprano Meneglejte + Sonda 57
Sound design: Jure Vlahovič
Visual materials: Toni Soprano Meneglejte
Dramaturgical collaborator: Urška Brodar
Technical director: Andrej Petrovčič
Executive producer: Maja Vižin
Public relations: Tamara Bračič Vidmar
Artistic residency: Santarcangelo Festival
Produced by: Bunker, Ljubljana
Made possible by: Ministry of Culture of Slovenia, City Municipality of Ljubljana, European Union — Culture programme, Create to Connect
Premiere: 30th August 2018
Photo: Nada Žgank