DRAMA (play in three acts)
NUMBER OF PERSONS: 12 (4w 8m)
PLACE AND TIME OF EVENT: The setting is a "small town," and the time of the play is not precisely specified. It is undoubtedly contemporary: the story took place only a few months or at most a few years before the play's book publication.
The booklet was printed and published by Goriška tiskarna: the drama was the sixth work by Govekar published by Andrej Gabršček. Their collaboration began with a collection of short stories Oh, these women!, which was published in 1897 in the Salon Library collection. It was followed by five more dramatic texts: Wrestlers (1899), Tenth brother (1901), Legionnaires (1904), Martin Krpan (1905) and Cramp (1910), which the author published under the pseudonym Rihard Svoboda.
The Slovenian Theatre Institute has only two copies of Gabrščko's edition. The second, from the library of actor and director Hinko Nučič, is without a cover and title page. On the page where Govekar's dedication to his wife is published, Nučič signed himself and added the title, the author's real name, pseudonym and subtitle with an incorrect information about the number of acts.
There are many parallels and similarities between Govekar's and Cankar's plays: after all, both were written as reactions to current political events before their publication in 1910. The political primacy of the Slovenian People's Party, which had been growing stronger year by year since the end of the 19th century, was absolutely consolidated with the results of the parliamentary elections (1907) and the following year with its victory in the elections to the Carniolan Provincial Assembly. It is interesting that the plays Cramp and Servants were allowed to be printed, but not staged. The unstoppable stage march of Cankar's drama began only after the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy (in the collection The Century of Servants , which was published on the centenary of the first performance in Trieste in 1919, lists 50 performances), Govekar's text Cramp However, it sank into oblivion and was never performed in a professional theater.
Writer, editor and translator Fran Govekar (1871 – 1949) after completing his studies in Vienna, worked as a publicist and later as a magistral clerk. He also lived to see his retirement from the City Hall in 1931 as a senior magistral councilor. Throughout all periods of his writing and professional career, he was intensely devoted to the theatre: he wrote plays, translated drama texts, was secretary of the Dramatic Society and the Ljubljana Theatre, intendant and theatre director. After the First World War, he was a co-founder and member of the board of directors of the Slovenian Theatre Consortium.
Govekar began publishing short stories during his student years, influenced by naturalistic literary models. The pinnacle of his prose work is the novel In the blood (1896). At the same time, his plays were also being created, which he designed using more traditional approaches.
In the first and third acts, we follow the events at the home of doctor Ivan Grča, while in the second act, the drama moves from private spaces to public ones, to the editorial office of a local newspaper.
From the doctor's conversations with ordinary people and intellectuals, we learn about a kind-hearted and principled man who is willing to take care of poor patients without payment. Grča is faced with an important life decision: his family is preparing to leave the Church. The doctor's religion is science:
…«I have thought long and hard, I have looked at the world with open eyes, I have studied all this pile of books...philosophers, theologians, historians and sociologists...so I know what I want, what I must...the act I am doing is only the result of my many years of scientific research into history and a thorough study of theosophy.. .” (p. 15)
Religion is superstition for him, »"a fable and a fairy tale for underage children", but he is also disturbed by "hundreds and hundreds of cases of violence by the church hierarchy.«
Grča understands his gesture as an intimate decision: his wife and son, a doctor, decided to leave completely freely: »Freethinkers must have the utmost respect for individuality. Terrorizing or violently suggesting in this field would not be freethinking..” (p. 21).
The plot is created by the newspaper editor, journalist Božidar Kremenšek, who enthusiastically supports the doctor's views and publishes them in his newspaper. He arrives on the scene with the news that »all free-thinking circles" are enthusiastic about his ideas, but Grča is aware even before he leaves that he will be left alone and that the readers of progressive newspapers and members of the "Free Thought" club will not follow him because their heads are not yet ripe for accepting the truth. They will be afraid of being declared "infidels and blasphemers"and they will turn their backs on him."Free thought is not for people who are amphibians in their principles, but only for scientists and for spirits who have enough ability to cultivate the strongest desire to find the truth.. .” (p. 23)
According to the doctor, religious and church issues do not belong in newspapers at all, but only "into scientific books and magazines, into cyclically arranged lectures for the best intelligence, and into the circles of the most select minds." (p. 25) He decided to make his move because of the unprincipledness of liberal circles: "But what is the essence of that 'freethinking' that still walks around churches, follows processions, sends its children to monasteries, builds schools taught by nuns and priests, decorates its homes with paintings and statues of Catholic idols, and parades on public promenades with prayer books in their hands and shrines around their necks?« (p. 23)
Grča believes that someday in the future, intellectualism will be truly free-thinking: the next stage will be free schools and, as a result, a free-thinking people.
The doctor's mother-in-law is dying and the priest is called to the house. The priest takes this opportunity to urge the family one last time to be prudent and to call them to reflection. He emphasizes the defensive stance of the Church, which never provokes a fight but always wins in the end.
In the second act, a sobering up follows. From the safe haven of the family home, we move into an environment that operates according to the laws of the market and that understands politics as a struggle between different interests, to which we must adapt as much as possible. Žiga Koritnik, the owner of a printing house and publisher, who received resignations from outraged newspaper subscribers because of Kremenšek's writing, puts pressure on him and gets him to change his views and decide on a different strategy. Professor Friderik Hlepuh, who was initially passionate about atheism and rebellion against the Church, also fears the success of his principal ambitions and switches sides. Grča is left alone and without a salary. He is fired from the hospital due to a strike by the Sisters of Mercy and other staff. Private patients also abandon him. The family, which is preparing to move, is dealt the final blow. Court Counselor Nikolaj Tribuč forbids his daughter Zdenka, the fiancée of the doctor's son, from having any contact with the young man and intends to find her another husband immediately. Fortunately, Zdenka hides with a friend and, by disappearing, scares her father so much that he realizes that the main condition for a happy marriage is love, »whether the marriage is concluded in a church or anywhere else. .” (p. 94)
The dramatic plot is drowned in the general excitement and euphoria of the young couple's love. All problems are forgotten or remain unresolved. In the final – melodramatic and almost operetta – scene, everyone throws themselves into each other's arms and declares their deep love and affection for each other.