What Did We Want from Shakespeare? What You Will or Twelfth Night on Slovenian Stages

Abstract

This article analyzes the Slovenian reception of Shakespeare’s comedy What You Will and identifies various interpretative approaches. Through a historical overview of the most significant Slovenian productions, with a focus on directorial approaches, audience response, and critical reception, the following conclusions are drawn. What You Will has proved to be an extremely flexible work, allowing for a wide range of interpretations. As early as the interwar period, Branko Gavella, with his ambitious direction and the influences of Stanislavsky and Danchenko, laid the foundations for in-depth staging. After the Second World War, productions initially focused on audience appeal and testing theatre ensembles, but it was not until the 1960s that Branko Gombač introduced a more serious approach, which was fully realized in his Trieste production. In 1986, Mile Korun presented a more modern interpretation, emphasizing gender identity and employing innovative directorial devices, symbolism, and additions to Shakespeare’s text. In the new millennium, Unkovski and Kica followed, building on Korun’s direction with improvisation and collective creativity; critics considered Kica’s staging more successful. What You Will is therefore characterized by interpretative openness, which encourages directors to adopt different approaches to its staging, but at the same time presents a trap, as productions can be reduced to superficial comic effects and thus lose their depth.