Theater that Matters: Dramaturgies of Antifascism
Recently we have been witnessing a dramatic rebirth of extreme nationalisms, philo- and neo-fascisms around Europe, swimmingly aligned with the “MAGA”-ism of a populist who famously lost the popular vote. It is in the former Eastern European countries where transitional nationalisms had already been trained in the nineties (with authoritarian aspirations in restored states like Serbia and Croatia), and where reactionary ideologies firstly materialized in representative and executive political power, now threatening to prevail over the rest of the continent.
Accompanied with video and photo documentation, this talk will present and critically discuss the case of a “national theater” which has become more than just a stage and institution where theatrical (meaning primarily artistic and symbolic) strategies and tactics of dealing with extreme political ideologies are being explored. Since the takeover in September 2014, the Croatian National Theater in the city of Rijeka, which I was running collaboratively with theatre and performance artist Oliver Frljić for two years, has been transformed into a platform for social action and cultural activism, even a sort of collective body that discloses, criticizes and fights the fascism(s) of today. Not without resistance and certainly not without risk. The presentation will foreground several momentous projects of the initial transformative season 2014/15 (“The Trilogy on Croatian Fascism”, “Croatian LGBT / National Theater”, “Fire Frljic and Blazevic!”, “The Other War”), as well as discuss the subsequent revised tactics that I have been testing as sole artistic director and general manager of Rijeka’s National Theater since summer 2016.
Marin Blažević is a theatre and performance studies scholar and dramaturge based in Zagreb, Croatia. As an associate professor at the Academy of Drama Arts (Department of Dramaturgy) and at the Music Academy (Department of Opera singing), University of Zagreb, he teaches theory and history of theatre and drama, performance studies and dramaturgy. He is also head-dramaturge of the Croatian National Theater in Rijeka and artistic director of the CNT’s Opera Company. In addition, Blažević was director of the 15th annual conference of Performance Studies international (Zagreb 2009) on the theme, MISperformance, and is director and dramaturge of PSi 2015, a dispersed international conference project in fifteen locations around the world: Fluid States: Performances of unKnowing.
Professor Blažević has published widely in the English, Italian, Croatian and Slovenian languages. He is author of Razgovori o novom kazalištu (Conversations on the New Theatre, 2007) and Izboren poraz (A Defeat Won, 2012), on the theory of new theatre and its peculiar history in Croatia. His publications also include collections of essays and edited thematic issues of international journals for performing arts and performance studies. With Matthew Goulish (Goat Island, Every House Has a Door) Marin co-edited special English issues of Performing Arts Journal Frakcija (Fraction): Reflections on the Process / Performance: A Reading Companion to Goat Island's ‘When will the September roses bloom?’ (2004/2005). With Lada Čale Feldman he co-edited Actor as/and Author thematic issue for Fraction (2001), and MIS-performance for Performance Research (including DVD On PSi#15 Shifts, co-edited with Una Bauer).