At the age of 82, Dušan Jovanović, one of the greatest Slovenian playwrights and directors, whose dramatic oeuvre is extremely rich, has passed away.
We paid tribute to Dušan Jovanović at the Slovenian Theater Institute in October 2019, on his 80th birthday, with an e-exhibition Dušan Jovanović, maestro of modern theatrical language, with the 3rd program of Radio Slovenia - the Ars program withalso worked on the preparation of the show Dušan Jovanović – octogenarian. You are welcome to view the e-exhibition and listen to the recording of the show.
About the e-exhibition Dušan Jovanović, maestro of modern theatrical language
"... From the photographic collection in the Ikonoteka of the Slovenian Theater Institute and from the archival material of theater houses, we have prepared a selection of recordings of baptism performances of the author's dramatic texts between 1969 and 2013. The selection follows the chronological sequence of the works that Amelia Kraigher discussed in Perspectives of rebellion in the drama of Dušan Jovanović (work in progress) classified into six creative phases. The photographic series retrospectively presents Jovanović's extensive oeuvre from a visual perspective.
Except in the case of two unstaged texts from the 1960s and two complications in the staging of dramatic works Fools and Play head tumor and air pollution in the first phase of creation (1962–1975), Jovanović's new texts were always performed in a relatively short time.
The collected notes of the time were created on the scene of Slovenian baptism performances, through which we can follow the reception of the dramatic opus of Dušan Jovanović. The double penetration into the public at the very beginning is symptomatic: in 1969, a photographic lens recorded both scenes of the performance Brands, then Emilia and moments from neo-avant-garde performances on the Small Drama stage of SNG Ljubljana Pupilija, papa Pupilo and Pupilčki in the Križanka Knight's Hall. This is followed by performances in several theaters: in the Slovenian Folk Theater in Celje (Fools, 1971; Play head tumor and air pollution, 1976; Karamazov (Reeducation of the Heart), 1980); in the Slovenian Permanent Theater in Trieste (Life of country playboys after World War II or The Three Cuckolds, 1972; A military secret, 1983; Kozarcky Clinic, 1999); in the Slovenian Youth Theater (Victims of boom-boom fashion, 1975; Grandma Frost's Cold War, 1982; I'm not me II, 1983); in the City Theater of Ljubljana (Generations, 1977; Viktor or Youth Day, 1989; Revelations, 2011); in the Primorsky Drama Theater Nova Gorica (Clairvoyant or Day of the Dead, 1989) and in Koper as part of the Primorska summer festival (Karajan C, 1998). In 1978, the text was performed on the Drama stage of the Slovenian National Theater in Ljubljana Liberation of Skopje, whose baptism performance was otherwise in Zagreb. Again, a decade of other stages follows, and then with staging Wall, lake in 1989, a series of productions of Jovanović's texts began on the stage of the Ljubljana Drama (Don Juan on a dog, 1991; Antigone, 1993; The riddle of the Korazh, 1994; Who sings that Sisyphus, 1997; An exhibitionist, 2001; Boris, Milena, Radko, 2013).
Dušan Jovanović performed a good third of his texts. As an integral author who, in the role of director, creates a staging of his own text, we met him as early as the 1970s on the stage of the Slovenian Permanent Theater in Trieste (Life of country playboys after World War II or The Three Cuckolds), where in the late 1990s he also set up Kozarcky Clinic. The outstanding visual elements in the show are worth highlighting Victims of boom-boom fashion in the Slovenian Youth Theater in 1975, where the author creatively collaborates with Meta Hočevar, who designs both scenography and costumes. Hočevar forms the space in many installations of Jovanović's works: in the 1980s Reeducate the Heart (Karamazov) and in Military secrets, and then in the 90s in Antigone and Riddles of Koraja (she herself directs them on the SNG Drama stage), v Who sings that Sisyphus and in Boris, Milena, Radko again in a creative dialogue with Jovanović.
In this set, we can follow the process of transformations from the dramatic font, which is left in the performance, to the theater photograph, which, as a record of the acting and visual moment of the performance, also reflects the features of the dramatic font."
M.Sc. Primož Jesenko, Slovenian Theater Institute
Dušan Jovanović – octogenarian in the show Oder, the 3rd program of Radio Slovenia - program Ars
A great practitioner and thinker of theater and society Dušan Jovanović, theater director and playwright, but also the founder and artistic director of theaters, who also taught for many years at the Academy for Theatre, Radio, Film and Television and authored numerous essays, columns, television scripts and much more, created a rich intangible cultural heritage. In addition to Slovenian theaters and Television Slovenia, it is also hosted by the Slovenian Theater Institute - Theater Museum and Radio Slovenia. Excerpts from plays, radio plays and preserved recordings of theater rehearsals, which were selected by the theatrologist Ana Perne and dramatist Petra Tanka and chosen for the show, represent a walk through the most prominent directorial and dramatic achievements, awarded with the Grum awards and the Borštnik meeting awards, which created by Dušan Jovanović in more than five decades.
Dušan Jovanović
"Playwright, director and essayist Dušan Jovanović (1939) co-shaped the Slovenian and wider theater scene for more than five decades, with the broad swing of an integrated author he represents a key authority in the renewal of modern dramatic language and stage expression in Slovenian theatre. In the 1960s and early 1970s, he was one of the founders of the Student Current Theater (ŠAG), Pupilija Ferkeverk Theater and Glej Experimental Theater - in all of them he was active as a director and performance reformer. Later, he became involved as an artistic director and director of the Slovenian Youth Theater (1978-1985) and a teacher at the AGRFT (1989-2006). Jovanović directed a good third of the christening performances of his own dramatic texts, as well as others that presented him with a staging challenge; all his directors are over ninety. When he writes, he directs, and when he directs, he writes and acts.
If we follow only fragments from the web of theater practice, writing for the theater and about the theater, we mention Jovanović's report from the international student theater festival IFSK in Zagreb (1963) and the writing of criticism for the last performance of Odra 57 (1964) in Tribunes. In 1966, they started with Smoletova with the Student Current Theater (ŠAG). Fun in the dark directed by Jovanović at the international student festival in Nancy. A performance expelled from Križanki Pupilija, papa Pupilo and Pupilčki (1969) of the "tribal" Pupilija Ferkeverk Theater, an experiment beyond the art of the official context, is presented in the Belgrade Youth Center. Then, in the 1970s, Jovanović participated at BITEF as many as five times (as a playwright or as a director). For (anti-verbal) performance Monument G (EG Glej, 1972) receives the first award for Slovenian theater at this eminent international festival. While the 'official' perception in Slovenia struggled with its own rigidity, Jovanović was already accepted at BITEF as an author who produces exciting and unexpected new paradigms for understanding theater art, also in repertory theatre. Let's mention just a few of them: Victims of boom-boom fashion, 1975; directed by Šeligova The witch from Zgornja Davča, SLG Celje, 1979; Plot and love after F. Schiller, MGL, 1980.
In the years when an aesthetically fresh phenomenon meant an unverifiable (suspicious) subversive potential rather than an interesting one, Jovanović's reputation enfant terrible, whose creative line rose steeply after 1970. He also directed outside of Ljubljana, in Celje and Trieste. In parallel with this, dramatic texts were created. His first and unstaged dramatic work There will be no show (1962) with playful irony predicted texts that introduced radical changes in content and form into our literary space, a grotesque subversive parodic critique of the regime, which, however, is already turning from engagement to an unencumbered game of language. With drama Fools (1968) and with the quasi-espionage drama of the absurd Brands, then Emilia (1969) predicts the period of the seventies and Slovenian dramas of the absurd: Play head tumor and air pollution (1971), The life of country playboys after World War II or We want foreigners - we don't give ours (1972). In the following years, Jovanović tackles socially engaged topics such as the information bureau, war, revolution, individual freedom, violence and totalitarianism in a different way; by recycling a familiar dramatic story from the history of drama, it leans towards serious drama. They were created first Liberation of Skopje (1977) and drama Karamazov, staged under the title Re-educating the heart (1980), and later the cycle Balkan Trilogy, which represents a response to the Bosnian war in the 1990s and derives Brecht's dramatic technique: Antigone (1993), The riddle of the Korazh (1994) and Who sings that Sisyphus (1997). Among the titles of the original author's dramatic texts, we also mention Wall, lake (1989), Don Juan on a dog (1990), An exhibitionist (2001) or the last one, Boris, Milena, Radko (2013). He also undertook several stage adaptations and dramatizations of prose texts, including Dostoyevsky (Be angry; Delusions), Bartola (Alamut) and Tolstoy (Anna Karenina).
Jovanović also wrote radio and TV plays, several books of his essays were published (Paberki, 1996, The world is a drama, 2007), in 2011 he also made his debut as a poet I didn't. Essay autobiography I fell in love with my mother in my old age (2018) is a prose work in which Jovanović passionately plays all registers of drama, theater and life. Jovanović plays Jovanović.
For his work, he was repeatedly awarded the Borštnik awards for the best direction (in 1973, 1975, 1979, 1980, 1987, 1991 and 2000) and the best performance as a whole (in 1975, 1978, 1989, 2004), he is a three-time recipient of the Grum Award (in 1980, 1990 and 1994), special jury awards at Bitef (1972), winner of the Prešeren Fund award (in 1979 for directing The King at Betajnova at MGL), the major Prešeren Award (1990), the Rosary Award (2008), and in 2009 received the Golden Order for his contributions to his creative work and the enrichment of Slovenian culture, especially theater, and its recognition in the world."
M.Sc. Primož Jesenko, Slovenian Theater Institute
