Slovenian (Practical) Dramaturgy and Slovenian Drama

Abstract

According to the initial definition, a (practical) dramaturge is a playwright, and the connection between a dramaturge and a playwright seems a natural one. Also, the first dramaturges in Slovenian theatre were playwrights: they wrote the texts, and adapted and translated them. Fran Levstik, author of the rules of The Drama Society (Dramatično društvo), was himself a playwright. Actor and director Ignacij Borštnik was also an author of original plays and adaptations. Nevertheless, before the first official dramaturge, Oton Župančič, it is difficult to speak of a relevant association between (practical) dramaturgy and Slovenian drama, and it is only with the play Veronika of Desenice (Veronika Deseniška) that this relationship was properly established. After Župančič, again a number of names prove that the dramaturge is also an author, and vice versa: that a playwright is often also a practical dramaturge. – The question of whether dramaturgical work in any way influences playwriting is not easy to answer. A dramaturge that is familiar with a theatrical process will use their knowledge in writing texts, and particularly in adapting them. Slovenian dramaturges often acted as supporters or advisors of other authors as they were writing their plays; Lojze Filipič was a good example. The theme in the foreground of this study, however, is whether Slovenian (practical) dramaturgy can move into the structure of the play itself, and in what way it then appears in it. – Firstly, the study looks at the dramaturge as a character, in Jovanović's play Act Tumor in the Head and Air Pollution (Igrajte tumor v glavi in onesnaženje zraka). For an in-depth review of (practical) dramaturgy in Slovenian drama it creates three typological levels: the thematic, where the playwriting itself or the theatre are the theme of the play; the formal, where the literary or theatrical practices already partly enter the structure of the play; and the structural, where the dramaturgical process overlaps with the play. With the help of contemporary theories on theatre (Pavis, Klotz, Pfister, Orel, Lehmann, etc.), the study then builds on other methodological perspectives to review concrete examples – in terms of the appearance of a play within a play, a (shifted) perspective in a play, meta-dramatic strategies, possible positions of the writer and the reader, etc. It finally looks at some typical plays and authors (Kreft, Golouh, Javoršek, Žmavc, Jovanović, Kralj, etc.) and finds the most radical structural overlapping of dramaturgy and drama in Jovanović's play Who’s Singing Sisyphus (Kdo to poje Sizifa).