More life: Angels in America in Slovenia
More life: Angels in America in Slovenia
On Nina Rajić Kranjac's exhilarating six-hour production of Tony Kushner's contemporary American epic.
Welcome to Café Europa, a weekly newsletter dedicated to European theatre.
This week I’m in The Stage talking about the European Theatre Convention (ETC) and its ambitious plans about sustainability. I also just returned from Ljubljana where I attended this year’s Mladinsko Theatre showcase. I plan on writing about this in more detail next week, but this week I’m going to focus on one production.
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On a misty March afternoon, a car pulls up outside the Mladinsko Theatre and a rabbi gets out. A man in a black coat sashays around, twirling his belt like a cat’s tail, as a group of people in furred hats emerge from the damp carpark and spill down the hill, carrying suitcases, the Jewish ancestors leaving the old country behind and heading for the new world.
This is the start of Angels in America, Tony Kushner’s ‘Gay Fantasia on National Themes,’ its two parts – Millennium Approaches and Perestroika performed in a single six-hour-plus stretch directed by Nina Rajić Kranjac, with dramaturgy by Dino Pešut.
Since graduating from the Academy of Theatre, Radio, Film, and Television at the University of Ljubljana, Kranjac has racked up accolades both in Slovenia and internationally. Her productions include Our Class and Lars Von Trier's The Idiots. She works across Slovenia's scene and her last production at Mladinsko was Solo, a four-person devised piece in which she also performed, which was, at least in part, about being a young celebrated director, though it was also a sort of meta-essay on mixed heritage identity in a post-Yugoslav context and a reflection on the process of artistic creation that cumulated in one performer, Marko Mandić, scaling the outside of the building naked except for a pair of roller-skates.
(Fascinatingly, having never been formed in Slovenia before, this is actually one of two productions of Angels in America running in Ljubljana right now, the other directed by Ivica Buljan at the Mini Theatre Ljubljana).
With Angels being (semi-) wedded to text, this doesn't quite reach those chaotic, naked heights as Solo, but it comes close at times. It is layered and hallucinatory, woozy and febrile, a raw and sprawling collage of a show. Many of the props have the feel of found objects that have been enfolded into the dramaturgy, a canoe, a bicycle, a length of plastic sheeting, a trio of moulded plastic chairs of the type you might find in a public waiting room, which are draped in black to become a casket during the opening scene which takes place at the funeral of Sarah Ironson, grandmother of Louis (Stane Tomazin). As these chairs are carried into the theatre, we are in invited to come inside by a figure in shimmering blue (Nataša Keser).
The lower hall of the Mladinsko Theatre, a narrow space with a vaulted ceiling has been carpeted in institutional blue. Two platforms have been erected on either side of the entrance and the space has been decked out with a mix of blue hospital curtains and red theatre curtains. A microphone sits on a table at one side of the stage, a bed on the other.
First performed in 1991, Kushner’s play weaves together the stories of several characters living in New York in the 1980s. Prior Walter (renamed Pred in Katja Zakrajšek’s translation and played by Croatian actor plays Adrian Pezdirc, who speaks in Croatian throughout), the last in a long line of Prior Walters, has been diagnosed with AIDS. His body is failing; he is dying, and Louis, his lover, is struggling to cope, distancing himself from Prior, and eventually leaving him.
The play’s other key characters are Roy Cohn (Jerko Marčić), based on the real life lawyer who grew to notoriety during Senator McCarthy’s red scare and would later become a mentor of sorts to Donald Trump, and court clerk Joe Pitt (Klemen Kovačič), a closeted gay Mormon. Joe’s wife Harper (Anja Novak), meanwhile, is so addled with Valium she hallucinates, that is when she is not fretting about the disappearing ozone layer.
In the first section of the performance, the scenes between Joe and Harper and Prior and Louis often overlap. Harper addresses her sexual frustration by grinding against the mattress on which Louis and Prior later lie together. Their worlds bleed into one another, as does their dialogue. At the front of the stage, Roy Cohn bullishly insists to his doctor that he doesn't have AIDs, that just because he sleeps with men, he is not a homosexual. Cohn is a man accustomed to bending the world to his will, who has never walked away from a fight and has used accusations of homosexuality to bring others down; he has no intention of capitulating to this disease.
The last version of Kushner’s play I saw was Marianne Elliott’s two-part production for London’s National Theatre. There Nathan Lane played Cohn as human pit-bull gradually diminished by sickness, and Andrew Garfield gave a performance of camp vulnerability as Prior, fragile yet dignified. There is a less room for emotional clarity in Kranjac’s production; instead the production is more experiential and image-driven, at once a thematic tapestry and a performative adventure.
Figures in protective suits and face masks frequently enter the theatre, conjuring images of more recent pandemics, as well as nuclear threat of the 1980s (and now, for that matter). Keser will occasionally drift across the stage in her blue dress smiling knowingly (she has the most knowing of smiles) while holding a glass of champagne. She also doubles as the nurse who tends to Prior in a matter-of-fact way, though even in this guise Keser has a low-level radiance.
The play is at once a document of the AIDs era, of its impact on a community and a country, on the collective as well as on individual body, it’s also a political document, a portrait of a society in a position of transition. It takes place at the start of Ronald Reagan’s second term, and fragments of Reagan's speeches, including the one where he said he would rather see his children dead than living under communism, are interspersed with the text alongside words from James Baldwin. The play’s critique of America is amplified in this way, though the production remains simultaneously rooted in a Slovenian context, with several references to the fact Pred speaks Croatian.
When the immigrant family gather at the theatre door, asking to be let in, Keser’s nurse turns them away: “Go away. We’re full,” she says, a phrase that connects decade to decade, the old world with the new: the eternal fear of the other. As Prior/Pred’s fevered grip on reality lessens, his ancestors show up (Pezdirc is interrogated on his own family tree); he is told he is a prophet
Inside and out
Roughly two hours in, we are invited to leave this space and relocate. The Mladinsko Theatre is part of a bigger complex - the building, originally built as a seminary, is the shape of an unfinished circle – which also contains student accommodation. Avoiding tree branches we clamber into the rear courtyard. Blankets are handed out, as are hot potatoes to keep us toasty. (This is, I think it's fair to say, a brave/arguably foolhardy show to premiere in the autumn, as they did, and they've had to cancel a few performances because of the weather).
Just as in Solo, Kranjac uses the boundary between outside and inside, as a portal, a membrane. Once we pass through it, we are in the realm of fantastic, the chamber of angels. History and mysticism collide. A platform has been erected and the actors use loud hailers. (Surtitles are projected on the walls for international guests). The family of immigrants, a recurrent presence throughout, return, picking their way across the mud and grass. The actors enter the student dorm and hurl books from its windows. We hear the sound of bombs exploding. Harper, clad in underwear, snow-boots and a woolly hat, masturbates vigorously while Joe and Louis consummate their relationship, stripping completely naked and embracing.
Tomazin and Kovačič simulate sex on the chilly ground, with only a Mylar blanket to shield them from the elements. It’s a bold, exposing choice and the actors commit to it, conveying a mixture of hunger, need and intimacy despite the wintry bitterness of the air. It is also an act of visibility, two male bodies intertwined. In play where the gay experience is tethered to shame and secrecy, here we see all.
The Great Work Begins
Once we have returned to earth/returned inside, Cohn is relegated to the corridor outside the playing space, where he lies sprawled on the stairs, as Keser cradles him and Ethel Rosenberg, who Cohn was instrumental in sending to the electric chair, cackles over his prone form while sucking on a lollipop. Instead of a portrait of physical disintegration, he is reduced to face ranting on a screen. Marčić has a natural affability as a performer even when Cohn is being despicable, but the video dulls his potency.
Kranac introduces elements of physical challenge and risk into the performance. At one point, Novak, still wearing cumbersome snow boots, hauls herself up from the ground onto one of the platforms that frames the theatre entrance. She has to use a coat-stand as a makeshift stepladder. She doesn’t manage it on the first attempt and ends up dangling upside down on the second. The whole thing is very precarious. You watch her with your heart in your mouth. Its characteristic of Kranjac’s approach though, the use of obstacles to accentuate the liveness. In Solo, they quoted the Serbian director Igor Vuk Torbica, who died tragically young in 2020: “The theatre is no longer dangerous. The theatre is surrounded by realpolitik! The duty of those who create today is not to just pinpoint a problem. They must be the executor of the problem. The director must become the problem himself.” That feels like a guiding principle in both shows.
It’s worth noting that the character of Belize, the Black male nurse and sometime drag queen who tends to Cohn, is played by Primož Bezjak. There’s a far larger conversation about race, representation and the European ensemble model than I have room for here, but this is the choice made in this instance. Bezjak is funny and poised in the role, a counterpoint to some of the more full-throttle performances.
At one point, the actors form a Mormon diorama, moving repetitive jerky clockwork motions, a moment of straight-up deliciously physical comedy that stands apart in its precision from the more chaotic bodily business going on elsewhere.
(I’ve tried to capture the texture of the performance but I’m sure there are bits I’ve missed. Reading over my notes, I keep coming across phrases like “cotton wool wings” and “Coca Cola ejaculate.”)
Pezdirc, whose performance walks a fascinating line between active and passive, affectation and intensity, has by now swapped his pyjamas for a black dress and pearls much like the outfit Princess Di wore when meeting Regan. By the end, he is wearing a wonky Statue of Liberty tinfoil headdress and a silver cloak.
For the plays final scenes, we return outdoors. To leave the main hall we must step over a carpet of spilled popcorn and discarded latex gloves, the detritus of life. Outside, we receive a shot of vodka to warm us up. A group of figures in white protective suits move slowly across the churned earth. The ground looks like a graveyard. There is an ominous humming sound. There is talk of Chernobyl. Old orders are falling. The world is on the brink.
On the one hand, this is a space of desolation, but on the night of the performance it transpires there is some sort of country music party night happening in the building opposite the theatre. Music echoes across the courtyard. Now, many a show would be broken by this unexpected penetration from Cotton Eye Joe, but Kranjac’s work somehow absorbs it. If anything, it weirdly benefits from this musical intrusion by an external (American) force. The ending, while it contains words of hope, is muted despite the music, the voices of the angels blotted out. More life maybe, but not a lot of light.
As a theatrical experience, it has been exhausting and exhilarating. The ensemble has impressed throughout, with performances at once vigorous and precise. Over six hours we have witnessed both the shredding of the self-myth of America and a captivating juxtaposition between Kushner’s hyper-literate, hyper-intricate mille-feuille of a text and Kranjac’s deceptively messy and cacophanos, never-less-than-compelling direction. Quite a ride.
This week in European theatre
A round-up of festivals, premieres and other exciting upcoming events over the next seven days
Oslo Internasjonale Teaterfestival – The Oslo international theatre festival takes place at the Black Box Theatre between 12th and 16th March and the programme includes Faroese company Det Ferösche Compagnie with their show Castle of Joy– the topic of this previous edition – and UK duo Bullyache with their exuberant show Tom.
Trigger Festival – Slovenia’s international festival for the independent scene takes place in a variety of venues around Maribor and Ljubljana, including Glej Theatre and the Old Power Station, between 14th-17th March. With a focus on the socio-political legacy of the former Yugoslavia, the programme features work by Croatian artist Jasna Jasna Žmak and two sections of Mladinsko Theatre’s mammoth Sex Education II (which I will talk about in - a lot - more detail next week).
The Iliad/Achilles - Antú Romero Nunes has made a name for himself on the German speaking scene with his inventive productions of the classics. He follows up his production of The Odyssey with a new production drawing on Homer’s The Iliad, which premieres at Theatre Basel on the 15th March.
Thank you for reading! If you have any tips, thoughts or feedback, you can contact me on natasha.tripney@gmail.com