»Boris Davidovič’s face and the pock-marked face of his executioner, bent on extracting yet another false confession, stared at each other through the darkness of a smoke-filled cell.«
About the performance
A great and invisible writer, Danilo Kiš, and the horizon of eastern Europe. Published in 1976, A Tomb for Boris Davidovič remains one of the most controversial landmarks in Yugoslav literature. Fertile material for Ivica Buljan, the Croatian director who brings his remarkable sensitivity to lead a bold and athletic team of international actors.
Using historical texts from European wars and revolutions from the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s Kiš is questioning the winners of history and exposing what all crimes have in common. Documentary approach and fragmentation are a picture of unreliable human memory, incompleteness of archives and cultural heritage, and of undependability of history.
The work of Danilo Kiš represents an ethical imperative to any artist thinking about political reality of southern Slavic territories. For older generations Reading Kiš today is a reminder of the power relationship between a Citizen/Individual/Artist and the State, and of the level of tolerance that one institution is willing to grant to another. For younger generations A Tomb for Boris Davidovič is an ethical and aesthetical manifesto, a singular one in our region.
Festivals and tours abroad
Mittelfest 2014 (Italy); July 2014
60th Split Summer Festival (Croatia); August 2014
18th International Festival of Contemporary Theatre Zadar Snova (Croatia); August 2014