At the fourth meeting with the recipients of Borštnik's ring, we will host Miranda Cahari and Aleksander Krošl in the hall of the Slovenian Theater Institute (SLOGI). The conversation with them will be conducted by Ana Perne.
Miranda Caharija, recipient of the Borštnik ring in 2005
As a girl from Nabrežina, she had the desire to become an actress in her childhood, and her desire to act in the Slovenian Permanent Theater in Trieste, where she started as a sixteen-year-old, also came true. She remembers the then large ensemble as "full of exceptional actors and actresses", who became her colleagues, as well as "excellent teachers". "Miranda's initial enthusiasm was supplemented by hard work under the strict supervision of experienced masters, by attempts to surpass the knowledge already acquired, by appropriating and rejecting the mentors' suggestions," Bogomila Kravos described the path of the student of the Trieste Theater School.
She remained loyal to the Slovenian Permanent Theater in Trieste throughout her career with numerous and very diverse acting creations. In 2002, the actress of characteristic immediacy, Karst toughness and hot-bloodedness received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association of Dramatic Artists of Slovenia.
She became famous as Snow White in the youth play of the same name by Pavel Golia (directed by Jožko Lukeš, 1961), but soon she was also entrusted with other roles; in 1961, Ophelia was in Babic's production of Shakespeare's Hamlet. "Interpretatively, she could be placed in the gallery of these Mediterranean types, but with the remark that her characters are imbued with a wide range of different shades of warmth, which give the decisiveness of character a touch of understanding grace. What is indicated in the text design as a woman's stubbornness or arbitrariness, becomes in her treatment a prudent sobriety or an unobtrusive straightforwardness." (B. Kravos)
She played in all the plays of the popular Nobel laureate Dario Foj, staged by the Trieste theater, and in 1978, for the role of Aenea in Babic's staging of the comedy The Seventh Commandment: Steal Less, she received the audience award at Borštnik's meeting. She collaborated a lot with the director Jožet Babič - in addition to the aforementioned, she also created the title role in his production of Župančič's Veronika Deseniška, for which she received the Severo Prize in 1977. But the collaboration was not only theatrical. With her role in Babič's film Po isti poti se ne vráčaj (1965), she crossed the threshold of the film industry and created several prominent roles, among them Eva in Slak's film of the same name from 1983.
Among her memorable productions is Delitev by Piero Chiara, directed by Mario Uršič, for which she and her colleagues Bogdana Bratuž and Mira Sardoč received the Borštnik Diploma for outstanding achievement in ensemble acting in 1984. With Uršič, she created even more roles, among which she especially likes the roles of strong female characters; such are Serafina in Williams's Tattooed Flower (1990), De Filippo's Filumena Marturano in the non-institutional production in 1996, which was played at various venues in Trieste in Slovenian and Italian, Deja Husu in Uršič's "folk play" of the same name, with the performance of which the actress commemorated the fortieth anniversary of her theater work, and this in the very year when she also received the Borštnikov prstan, the highest acting award for lifetime achievement.
Aleksander Krošl, recipient of Borštnik's Ring in 2000
As he says in one conversation, three "culprits" were decisive for his choice of an acting profession: the actors Stane Sever and Mira Stupica, and the late Maribor theater director Jože Mlakar, who invited him to work with an amateur theater group. A few months later, he successfully auditioned at the professional regional theater in Ptuj, where he made his debut in 1950 with the role of Mirko in Žižka's adaptation of Miklova Zala. The half-year period in Ptuj was followed by acting studies at the Ljubljana Academy, followed by engagements in various theaters. He first played in the theater in Celje for two decades, and then moved between theaters for a few seasons: after three seasons, he returned to Celje from the Drama in Ljubljana, then went to the Drama in Maribor for a short time, and finally settled in the theater in Novi Gori. In the meantime, in addition to numerous theater roles, he also created important film and television roles.
"From the very beginning, the story of this striking stage artist revolved around mature male figures, or so-called character roles, with which Krošl actually became a unique concept among his colleagues, of course especially his peers," notes theater expert Vasja Predan, who first highlights the actor in his portrait the extremely laudatory assessment that the strict critic Josip Vidmar gave about his role as Sophocles' Oedipus (in the Celje production by director D. Radojević, 1968): "He was briefly a bit powerful and shocking. After the departure of Ivan Levar, he is supposedly the first hero of a real format on our stages."
In the creation of complex characters, as Predan writes, Krošl "always proceeded from psychologically detailed characterization and especially cultivated speech precision, logic and consistency, anchored in the most famous Slovenian traditions of the so-called noble stage realism". Such characters in Krošl's Celje period include Hoederer in Sartre's Dirty Hands and Thomas Becket in Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral (both directed by F. Križaj). For Hoederer and for the role of Gornik in Cankar's comedy Za narodov blagor (directed by M. Korun), he received the Prešeren Fund award in 1967, and for Thomas Becket in 1971, he was awarded at the Borštnik meeting; in the same year, the Sever award followed.
From the Novi Gore period, he is best remembered for the title role in the ambient production of Don Quixote (dramatization by MA Bulgakov, directed by Z. Šedlbauer, 1984), and characters such as James Tyrone in O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night and Bruscon in Bernhard's The Comedian (both under directed by D. Mlakar, 1984 and 1989). With the latter, Krošl marked thirty-five years of his acting career, and the critic Andrej Inkret wrote that he "sovereignly conquers Bernhard's extensive and complicated score with casual humor and effective theatrical accents".
Although he retired in 1992, he continued to work with the theater in Novogorje, even during the time when he was awarded the Borštnik ring, when he portrayed the character of Padar in the production of That Beautiful Day (a dramatization of Kosmač's novella by S. Fišer, directed by B. Kobal).
Ana Perne graduated in dramaturgy at AGRFT and in French language with literature and sociology of culture at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Ljubljana. After completing her studies, she gained the status of self-employed in culture and worked in the theater field in various roles as a critic, editor, conversation moderator... Since the end of December 2014, she has been employed at the Slovenian Theater Institute.
In 2015, we will celebrate half a century of the Borštnik's Meeting Festival. The Slovenian Theater Institute, Borštnik's Meeting Festival (Slovenian National Theater Maribor) and the National Liberation Museum Maribor will celebrate the jubilee with an exhibition of 50 years of Borštnik's Meeting. We want to offer visitors a reflection on the changes in Slovenian (and especially today's) society and on the importance and place of culture in our everyday life. The central part of the exhibition will be on display in the fall of 2015 at the Museum of National Liberation in Maribor. As part of the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the festival, talks are also held with the recipients of Borštnik's ring, an e-exhibition will be on display, meetings between theater creators and students will take place... The Novi Zato institute will also take part in the performance. and First and II. high school in Maribor.
