Slovenians began performing the plays of the Swedish playwright August Strindberg (1849-1912) relatively late. His works were – mainly thanks to German translations – quite influential and widespread and influenced the development of Slovenian literature, but theatre creators hesitated for a long time and preferred to turn to Ibsen and contemporary German dramatists. With Borštnik's guest performance in Ljubljana in 1909, the schaelo-play became synonymous with Strindberg on our stages. Father, which is similar in content and form To the Pelican.
Writer, theatre critic and editor Juš Kozak (1892-1964) Pelican translated from German as a twenty-six-year-old, during the period of his first publications of original literary texts. The famous Strindberg play in his translation was first staged on stage in the turbulent post-war season (25 May 1919) at the Ljubljana Theatre, directed by Valo Bratina. The famous actor also staged Strindberg's chamber drama in Maribor, where he continued his career at the newly established National Theatre (1 June 1920), between Bratina's first and second productions Pelican and was directed in Trieste by the young Emil Kralj.
In the 1921/22 season he was Pelican staged as the opening performance of the newly founded Šentjakob Theatre, and two years later it was also performed in Celje in Kozak's translation. Like most translations of dramatic texts, this play was not published in print and remained available to readers and theatre creators only in manuscript and typescript versions.
For the re-performance at the Šentjakob Theatre, we have prepared electronic versions of one of the manuscripts and typescripts that are kept at the Slovenian Theatre Institute. The manuscript was used by the stage manager of the Ljubljana Drama, Jože Smerkolj (sig. DD 111). On the second page, he signed himself, on the next he listed the cast, and in the text he wrote down mainly mise-en-scene notes and musical inserts. The volume, measuring 34 x 21 cm, has 46 numbered leaves. In addition to the stage manager's book, a manuscript of the same format and size has also been preserved. It is Valo Bratina's director's book, which was re-bound after World War II, in the first years of the Slovenian Theatre Museum's operation (sig. K II 295).
We are also publishing a typescript that was subsequently attached to the stage manager's book (A4 format, 31 sheets, 29 numbered pages). Read.
Pelican was newly translated into Slovenian six decades later by Janko Moder. Strindberg's play in Moder's translation was staged on the stage of the Ljubljana Drama Theatre by Zvone Šedlbauer in the 1980/81 season.
