Today’s Theatre Can Reshape Tomorrow’s World: Dialogue—Crises, Directed by Žiga Divjak

Abstract

It can be remarked that in the past few years more and more independent theatres around the world are choosing to engage in their productions in debates on climate change, capitalism, and political movements in their home countries, and this can be interpreted as a rise of social activism in theater. Certainly, the interest in contemporary social themes of immediate relevance or activism is a phenomenon already well-established in the European space through documentary or devised theatre, or in the American space through the use of theatre techniques such as Verbatim or Participatory Theatre. Nevertheless, it is important to understand the intentions behind a project that addresses such relevant themes from the perspective of the director or the creative team, especially in the Eastern European region. Therefore, throughout this paper, I will present some relevant productions on these topics and then discuss the performance Crises directed by Žiga Divjak at the Mladinsko Theatre in Ljubljana, Slovenia. In order to deepen the understanding of the artistic motivations behind social theater, I also conducted a dialogical interview with the director Žiga Divjak and used it as a research method for my paper.