Theatre in Slovenia Today: Problems and Promises
Alja Predan*
Abstract
Slovenian theatre has been one of the foundations of national identity, hence its historical and present importance. In has always been dynamic and avant garde, lately even more so. Today, a generation of millenial directors, mostly female, creates an unconventional, esthetically radically different and socially involved theatre, mostly based on projects devised through rehearsing processes. Despite frequent conflicts of interest due to small size population, Slovenian theatre has also preserved an international inclusiveness, thus proving that art can overcome political rigidity and keep alive the artistic ties between nations.
Keywords: national identity, director’s theatre, transliterarity, social engagement, international inclusiveness
Foundations
Since its inception, Slovenian theatre has been a cornerstone in shaping national identity. Up until the turn of the third millennium, it was also deeply connected to the Slovenian language and native playwriting.
Slovenia is a kind of bonsai country for the average European, being one of the smallest in Europe in terms of population and land area. However, in the performing arts, it is very diverse, rich and comparable to other European centres. Of course, Slovene, as the most archaic Slavic language (it boasts, among other things, the rare grammatical form of dual), spoken by only two million inhabitants, is also one of the obstacles to Slovenian theatre not being (more) visible beyond its borders. Even during the Yugoslav era, Slovenian theatre was regarded as a unique phenomenon, known for its groundbreaking innovations. To mention just two examples: at the end of the 1960s, a generation of then emerging theatre-makers provocatively broke with the flow of literary theatre and, in the spirit of artaudian principles, announced a performative turn. In 1969, the director and playwright Dušan Jovanović (1939 – 2000) concluded the neo-avant-garde happening Pupilija, papa Pupilo pa Pupilčki with the ritual slaughter of a live chicken in front of the audience. Critics and the public were shocked, as the event escalated into a scandal, but ultimately became a Yugoslav attraction. The death of that “industrial white hen” was in fact the metaphorical death of literary theatre and a turn towards re-theatricalisation.

The second extreme performative phenomenon has yet to be explored on a global level. Dragan Živadinov (1960), an independent theatre wanderer, director, author, attractor, inventor of the concept of retrogarde, space science researcher, staged “the first play in the cosmos” in 1999, only a few years after the collapse of the common state. The project Gravity Zero Biomechanics Noordung – Farewell Rite was partially performed in zero gravity in the Russian CPK, Star City. A rocket with actors was launched to zero gravity and then a cosmic ballet of performers was broadcast live on the internet.

Changes
After 1991 Slovenian theatre became even more dynamic. The independent scene grew and new theatres opened. Today there are three national drama theatres, two national operas, two national ballets, seven city drama theatres, the repertory city theatre in Trieste, which is the theatre of the Slovenian minority in Italy, and two city puppet theatres. These are institutions with permanent premises, mostly permanent ensembles and stable public financial support.
In addition, there is a plethora of so-called “independent” producers, also publicly funded (state or local), either on a programme (every 2 or 4 years) or project basis (annually).
Projects range from contemporary dance, contemporary circus, performance, puppet shows and children’s shows to classical drama, post-drama, no-more-drama or post-literary productions. A minority of these producers have permanent premises and function as production centres, while most have to rent space or join together in co-productions.
There are no ensembles in the independent scene; all actors are engaged on a project basis. Public funding for independent productions is significantly lower than for state theatres, resulting in more modest performances. This disparity widened during the COVID era, and its effects are still evident today.

Mladinsko
Among the theatre companies, the Theatre Mladinsko is worth mentioning. It was founded after World War II to perform repertoire for children and young people, but changed direction in the late 1970s, when the aforementioned charismatic Dušan Jovanović took over the artistic direction, and profiled Mladinsko as a socially engaged theatre. With its critical and provocative approach and innovative performative procedures, it has consciously broadened its audience to include all age groups. It could be roughly compared to Berlin’s Gorki Theatre, for example. Even during the Yugoslav period, a number of highly critical, sometimes subversive political plays were produced there: for example, Missa in a-minor (directed by Ljubiša Ristić, 1947) or A Class Enemy (directed by Vito Taufer, 1959). Tomaž Pandur (1963–2016), Dragan Živadinov and Tomi Janežič (1972), among others, began their professional careers there. After the break-up of Yugoslavia and the change of artistic leadership, directors Janez Janša (1964) and Oliver Frljić (1976) realised their high-profile projects there. Today they both live and work in Berlin.

In all its aspects, aesthetic and social, the Theatre Mladinsko has remained the most engaged and exciting theatre to this day. Žiga Divjak (1992), a member of the youngest generation of directors, has also created some outstanding examples of documentary theatre with refugee issues.
The already mentioned deliterarisation at the end of the 1960s had unpredictably far-reaching consequences. On the one hand, theatre has increasingly shifted towards a director-focused approach over the decades; on the other hand, indigenous playwriting has gradually lost the vigor of the first two post-war generations and, with few exceptions, has largely been replaced by what is now known as original projects or devised theatre – in other words, a transliterary performance model.
Generations of Directors
In Slovenia, the term “director’s theatre” refers to the role of the director both within and beyond the creative process. What does this entail? Traditionally, theatre repertoires were created with the artistic director’s vision in mind, focusing on the growth of the ensemble and the audience. However, nowadays, these repertoires often reflect the preferences of individual directors. Their input helps shape the artistic direction of the theatre, influencing cast selections and ultimately impacting the overall artistic profile of the theatre companies
After the COVID period, the influence has been transferred also to the production level, since it is not uncommon for directors to determine the conditions of work and the dates of rehearsals.

Since the mid-20th century, Slovenian theatre studies has recorded five distinct directorial generations. It is probably pointless to write about the first two post-war generations, as most of the great names have passed away. The sole exception is the legendary Mile Korun (1928), who, in 1968, became the first to challenge the then untouchable drama classics. His distinctive interpretation of Oresteia not only preceded Luca Ronconi and Peter Stein but also established an anthological modernist foundation for the semantic and aesthetic autonomy of staging.
The next generation also encompasses the late Tomaž Pandur, who made significant strides in his international career within the Ibero-Hispanic world; director Janez Pipan (1956), who during his years of artistic leadership (1994–2008) established the National Theatre in Ljubljana as the leading Slovenian and regional theatre; and, of course, Mateja Koležnik (1962), who is nowadays especially renowned and rewarded director in Germany. She has certainly had the most successful and relevant international career of all Slovenian directors. Unfortunately, for various reasons, she has been absent from the theatre at home for the last eight years. It is to be hoped that this will soon change.
Following them, the fourth generation, born in the early 1970s, has emerged. Jernej Lorenci (1973) has firmly established himself in the European theatre scene, particularly with notable works such as Iliad and The Crazy Locomotive. Sebastijan Horvat (1971) works extensively in the “region” (the local name for the area of the former Yugoslavia), and Tomi Janežič, who is quite well known in Norway, Russia, and partly also elsewhere. Interestingly, none of the three most prominent directors of the middle generation has ever gone on to run a major theatre, yet all of them teach at the Academy of Theatre, Radio, Film and Television (AGRFT), which is the only national school with an accredited programme in all of these fields.
“Mateja’s Children”
However, behind them, an unstoppable wave of young people is emerging, particularly young women. While the directing profession was once predominantly male, with only a few exceptions, women are now stepping into leadership roles. There are several reasons for this feminisation.
Certainly, the emancipatory spirit of feminism has empowered young women to take on leading professions, and with them the risk and responsibility; but it is also true to observe that the feminisation of professions is taking place mainly in fields that are less financially attractive compared with more lucrative professions. The Borštnik theatre festival, a kind of Slovenian Theatertreffen, is a pretty accurate indicator of the situation. An analysis of the past five years – excluding COVID of 2020 – reveals that the main prize has been awarded predominantely to directors from the millennial generation. This includes the only male winner, Žiga Divjak, and the females Tjaša Črnigoj (1988), Nina Rajić Kranjac (1991), Maša Pelko (1992), Mojca Madon (1994), and the promising recent graduate Živa Bizovičar (1998). Rajić Kranjac received even two directing awards at this festival, a grand prix at the Bitef festival, and also the leading national Prešeren award.
Transliterarity
The Slovenian Drama Week is the second most important national festival. Every year, it hosts a selection of the best productions based on Slovenian plays. The number of plays based on foreign texts has recently been roughly equal to the number of plays based on domestic ones, but the ratio is changing in favour of domestic texts. However, this does not mean that theatres and companies are staging more indigenous plays. In fact, these are disappearing from the repertoires year by year. They are being replaced by original projects, dramatisations, adaptations of prose and other literary works, or devised projects where the text is created in a process of performance study. Theatre and domestic drama in the classical sense of the word are becoming more and more distant in Slovenia.
Theatre is currently undergoing a transformation into a form that is no longer based on drama, but on various post-literary templates. A review of the last five years shows that in 2019, 11 productions based on classical domestic texts and only 4 with a transliterary template were included in the festival, while in 2023 this ratio has changed to 75% to 25% in favour of transliterary practices.
The reasons for this shift are probably different. They certainly raise questions about the relevance of domestic classical and contemporary drama. However, as generations change, it becomes clear that written plays require significantly more research to engage young people in meaningful dialogue.

It is also interesting to note that, despite the pedagogical programme of playwriting at AGRFT and numerous workshops of this kind, the generational dialogue between director and writer has never really taken off in Slovenian theatre. The exception is the tandem of director Žiga Divjak and the playwright Katarino Morano (1988), who have so far created a series of excellent productions, usually awarded at the two most important festivals. Of the older playwrights, only Matjaž Zupančič (1959) is still active, and he usually directs his plays himself. Among the middle generation, Simona Semenič (1972) stands out for her innovative approach to playwriting. However, her contemporaries in directing have yet to find the motivation or the appropriate theatrical framework to fully embrace her methods. Semenič is a top playwright who has been widely translated into other languages and performed outside Slovenia.

In contemporary Slovenian theatre, the role of the playwright is increasingly being called into question as authorship becomes more collective. Nevertheless, one remains hopeful that, as with many other aspects of theatre, this trend will shift and that individual playwriting will once again thrive on the stage.
Cultural Policy
Based on recent festival awards, it’s evident that national and larger city theatres have been experiencing a decline in both the quality and ambition of their repertoires. In contrast, the Mladinsko Theatre, in partnership with Maska (who has won the Grand Prix at the Borštnik Theatre Festival three consecutive times), some independent producers, and the Prešeren Theatre Kranj (which has earned two main prizes this year alone), have maintained a high level of quality. Despite having a very small ensemble, the Prešeren Theatre Kranj has consistently delivered a highly ambitious program for many years.

The primary issue, as I see it, lies in the lack of a consistent cultural policy. Slovenia as an independent country has existed for 32 years, and we are currently seeing the 17th Minister of Culture. Statistically, this means that, on average, ministers have not even stayed in office for two years, and, in fact, in all that time, only two have managed a full four-year term. So cultural policy has so far risked very little correction, change and reform.
In the performative arts sector, the independent scene has seen positive changes, though it’s still not reaching its full potential. In contrast, public theatres have largely remained stagnant. Funding for these institutions tends to be automatic, regardless of production quality. Managerial terms, while officially capped at five years, are frequently extended indefinitely for political convenience, leading to a state of stagnation. As a result, large national companies, despite their impressively gifted ensembles, are often more artistically predictable and less ambitious compared to smaller groups that are pushing for greater visibility and innovation.
The Sandbox Syndrome
Another problem facing Slovenian theatre stems from the small size of the population. Assuming that one per cent is involved in theatre in one way or another, that is about 2000 people. And it is easy to understand that such a circle is very closed, intertwined and connected by friendship, kinship, interests or otherwise. In our country, practically everyone who is involved in theatre knows each other more or less. Thus, there are often conflicts of interest, nepotistic and protectionist risks. However, excluding individuals from decision-making juries or commissions is a common practice, but forming of festival juries or finding independent programmers are challenging tasks, especially since many of us are also directly involved in production. This issue is further complicated by the shifting perception of nepotism and conflicts of interest, which have transitioned from being seen as morally questionable to widely accepted. The blending of family and social connections has often surpassed acceptable boundaries of propriety.
Transregionalism
But there is also something very positive in the Slovenian theatre pot: inclusiveness. Although Yugoslavia as a political entity broke up into several ethnic states in 1991 and the state systems changed throughout the region, the cultural space of the region remained accessible and still interesting. Despite the different languages spoken in the former country, the pre-millennial generations can still communicate in their own languages and are mutually understood, which is important for theatre creation.
Initially, the flow of artists between regions understandably decreased. However, over time, cultural connections were among the first to be reestablished. Thus, Slovenian productions are quite regularly presented at the Bitef festival in Belgrade (for the last few years they have been winning the main prizes), festivals Sterijino Pozorje in Novi Sad, Mess in Sarajevo, Mot in Skopje. Intensive exchanges take place mainly between directors, but of course the economic situation is different in the Western Balkan, so there are many more people looking for work in Slovenia than the other way around.
It is worth mentioning that three important theatres in Slovenia, the Drama of the Slovene National Theatre Maribor, the Mladinsko Theatre and the independent Mini teater, have been led for several years by artistic directors from Northern Macedonia, Serbia and Croatia respectively. While the phenomenon is not reciprocal, it is true that Slovenian theatre has traditionally been very inclusive and open not only to the regional creative influx, but also more broadly.
Historically, as evidenced in the Balkans, culture and art have consistently shown their ability to overcome political obstacles and maintain artistic ties among nations.

*Alja Predan was artistic director of the Nova Gorica City Theatre, dramaturg of the Ljubljana and Celje City Theatres, editor of specialized theatre book edition – MGL Library, artistic director of theatre and dance department at Ljubljana Cultural centre Cankarjev dom, artistic director of the Maribor Theatre Festival. Currently, she is programming director of the National drama festival in Kranj.
Copyright © 2024 Alja Predan
Critical Stages/Scènes critiques, #30, Dec. 2024
e-ISSN: 2409-7411
This work is licensed under the
Creative Commons Attribution International License CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.