Eve of Retirement

Prešeren Theatre Kranj

Première: 26. 9. 2015, Prešeren Theatre Kranj
Running time 1 hour 45 minutes. No interval.

Original title Vor dem Ruhestand

Translator Lučka Jenčič
Director Mateja Koležnik
Dramaturgs Amelia Kraigher, Nika Leskovšek
Set designer Mojca Kocbek Vimos
Costume designer Alan Hranitelj
Choreographer Magdalena Reiter
Author of video Andrej Intihar
Language consultant Barbara Rogelj
Make-up designer Matej Pajntar
Lighting designer Bojan Hudernik

Cast
Rudolf Höller Borut Veselko
Clara Darja Reichman
Vera Vesna Jevnikar

Besides Elfriede Jelinek and Peter Handke, Thomas Bernhard is considered the most prominent Austrian post-war writer and playwright. He received a number of prestigious awards for his work, among them the Austrian State Awards for Literature (1968) and the Büchner Award (1970), which he mocked with his razor-sharp criticism and cynicism in his book All My Awards. His merciless critique of a false society and its relations brought him the title "the nest desecrater”. In his novels and plays he doesn’t hide his straightforward opposition to Austrian society. Hence already during his lifetime his works have triggered turbulent response and scandals in the Austrian public up to the point where Bernhard even prohibited the entire Austrian theatre space to stage his plays. The most frequent reason for such reactions was his relentless disclosing of the taboo theme of Nazism and the unresolved traumas connected both to the Austrian Nazi past and the present. And that is exactly the subject of the play Eve of Retirement, which he himself defined as a comedy of the German soul. The play deals with the subject of the suppressed and concealed "cultivation” of Nazi origins and ideals through the story of a former Nazi and his two sisters, their relations at once revealing a distressing picture of perverted family relations and societal relations in general.

"Mateja Koležnik’s direction has meticulously placed Bernhard in the vicinity of comedy, as much as it is characterised by mechanical gestures, stiffness and the lifelessness of characters. At the same time, she has lined the production with an evocation of burlesque and the Expressionistic horror movie style, enabling three extraordinary actors’ creations and reminding us of Grum’s question: What on Earth is happening behind those walls?”

Matej Bogataj, Delo, 9 October 2015

Photo: Boris B. Voglar

Photo: Boris B. Voglar

Photo: Boris B. Voglar

Photo: Boris B. Voglar