| IVAN KUŠAN |
- A Satire -
THEME: Dubrovnik history
NUMBER OF CHARACTERS: 17 + several groups (members of the Major and Minor
Council, Venetians, Frenchmen...)
NUMBER OF ACTS: 1
SETTING: Dubrovnik, "A large folk fair with a historical auction held in
the Old City Harbour"
TIME: from Byzantine to contemporary times
WRITTEN IN: 1971 (first edition)
SUMMARY:
Characters from Dubrovnik's political, artistic and everyday life, sketched in a
Carnival atmosphere, are waiting for the Byzantians (the Vizantians) led by
Porphyrogenetus, who speaks the Serbian language. After a brief (verbal)
conflict, the conqueror manages to achieve all his objectives, at least until
the arrival of those who followed him: the Turks, the Venetians, the French,
Austrians and, once again, the Vizantians (contemporary ones this time)...
The play was premiered at the 1971 Dubrovnik Summer Festival
SUMMARY:
Maria, a woman from the provinces (45 year old) has heard that the famous actor
Rudolf Malz has lost his "snuff-bird" instead of his "snuff-
-box" and comes to his salon, giving him her ring. Together with Malz,
stressed out by the production of Egmont, she meets his wife Zorka, servant-girl
Silva, and a "bearer of bad news", Đim, who thinks that Maria is a
well-known criminal, the illegitimate daughter of Baroness Castelli... The same
characters, largely with changed names, are found in a similar situation in
1982, but characters like Maria and Đim (Đuka) are now part of the theatre
world...
BIOGRAPHY:
Ivan Kušan was born in Sarajevo in 1933. He was educated in Zagreb and lives
there. He is an academy-trained artist. He has worked as an editor at Zagreb
Radio-TV and at Telegram, has been a dramaturg at Zagreb-Film, and editor for Školska
Knjiga, the publishers. He was editor of the magazine The Bridge, and the Znanja
and Školska Knjiga libraries. He has written a host of plays, film scripts,
radio and television dramas, novels, short stories, essays and criticism, and
compiled several anthologies. He has had two independent exhibitions of his art.
His book of plays The Purpose of Freedom has been published, along with the
novels Red Alert on Green Peak, Torn Between, Koko and the Ghosts, Homework,
Walled in by a Wall. The Mysterious Boy, Melita - You're Lying, The Tower, Koko
in Paris, The Naifs, Love or Death, Koko in Knin, and also stories and travel
prose and parodies such as A Moment In Advance, A Great Day, Deliberate
Long-Term Anger, The Disguised Beggar, The One Hundred Largest Holes, and A Book
for Young and Old.
Performed plays: Memorial to Demosthenes, The Tower, The Purpose of Freedom,
Vaudeville, Charuga, Psychopaths, A Hole for Marriage, Beauty and the Beast,
Voice of the People, Melita - You're Lying and the dramatic adaptation of the
novel The Naifs. Unperformed plays: The False Baroness, The Tree-Log Round
Dance, A Clean Deal, and the TV-scripts: Twenty Famous People, and Sopzilj.
He has translated Harte, Saint-Expiry, Tolstoy, Maupassant, Chehov, Twin,
Solzenycin, Ionesco... Kušan has been received numerous awards and prizes.
ADDRESS:
Ivan Kušan, Nova Ves 72, 10000 Zagreb
Tel.: +385 1 466 6510