Betontanc: WET HANKY THIEVES

Tears are our chewing gum

My legs and arms are sound. I am not blind yet. I can also hear and everything is all right down there for the time being. Only my heart is beating madly because of the pain I feel in my head when I look at the sun which is supposedly 300,000 times greater than the Earth and any other such zeros and numbers that tell me how small we are. So we sat on the stage and I told them to be a forest, because in a forest every tree grows where it will, yet there is no chaos and I told them to take colours – blue, red, yellow and all the other mess – choke on imagination and plaster it all over this green valley of ours.
Then we roamed victoriously over hill and vale, and they reviled us, calling us a barbaric horde from the East, saying we were that kind of being which can live only if it hates. Yet we did not bust their jaws, because we had already sold our souls/ourselves long ago. Sold them from fear, and the only pleasure, not comfort, still left us is weeping. We do not need their chewing gum, for we have our tears. If we could only throw up. Throwing up eases the stomach. Crying dosen`t.
Therefore we beg to be excused. You see, some people know how to make bombs, while all we know to do is stage plays.

Matjaž Pograjc

Credits

  • Directed by: Matjaž Pograjc
  • Conceived and performed by: Alma Blagdanič, Igor Dragar, Janja Majzelj, Blažka Müller, Ivan Peternelj, Matej Recer
  • Music composed by: Mitja Vrhovnik – Smrekar
  • Set design: Tomaž Štrucl
  • Costumes: Lena Pislak, Rok Preložnik
  • Lighting design: Pascal Merat
  • Lighting operator: Denis Tankovič
  • Stage manager: Andrej Meljo
  • Production: Glej Theatre
  • Co-production: Cankarjev dom
  • Supported by: CNDC L`Esquisse de Angers
  • The performance was made possible by: Ministry of Culture, City Council of Ljubljana

Photo: Glej Theatre archive
Video: Bunker archive
Editors: Gregor Gobec, Urška Boljkovac

Additional informations

Premiere:
17th November 1993, Cankarjev dom

Past performances:

  • 18th and 19th November 1993, Cankarjev dom
  • 11th and 12th December 1993, Cankarjev dom
  • February 1994, UNIKUM / BODEN PROBEN, Klagenfurt
  • November 1994, KULTURETAGE, Oldenburg

Flyer
Theater sheet