June 30th, FRIDAY, 7:30 pm
Theatre Carte Blanche

OZREN GRABARIĆ, DIARY OF A MADMAN
Mono-opera

Based on the short story by Nikolay Vasilievich Gogol
Composer, scenographer and director: Marjan Nećak
Video: Marin Lukanović
Cast: OZREN GRABARIĆ
Collaborators:
Psychiatrist dr.sc. Izabela Filov
Art Historian Olivera Makarievska
Translator Elena Kitanovska-Ristoska
Copy Editor Julijana Lukić
Design and drawings Martina Perkušić
Set design and props Ilija Jankulovski Ges

’Diary of a Madman’ by N. V. Gogol is considered to be one of the earliest detailed depictions of schizophrenia before the disease got a place in medical practice or even a name. Gogol’s story doesn’t give a medical analysis, rather it questions the society in which the individual tries to find meaning in his own identity and social status. Through his lucid style of writing Gogol attains literary perfection, his words are scientifically accurate, yet poetic in their description of Poprishchin’s disease which is used as a metaphor for the sick society in which we live, Gogol reminds us that we are all, in a way, conflicted with reality. Which reality is more real? The one we read in the papers, the one we observe around us every day, or the one inside us? Each of us take our place in the battle between east and west, left and right, the religious and the non-religious view of the world, we each fight for what we percieve to be normal, and absurdly, we are percieved as mad for chosing a side. This chamber spectacle uses music, video and drama to explore the twisted perception of the world by a clerk who society sees as insignificant and therefore undesirable.

OZREN GRABARIĆ
Born in Zagreb in 1980. He graduated from high school in Barcelona. Afterwards, he enrolled at the Academy of Dramatic Arts in Zagreb where he graduated in 2006.
He performed his first leading role in the Travelling Theatre Troupe, directed by Relja Bašić. Since then he has starred in a number of main roles in theatres across Croatia. Some of his notable roles are:
Arturo Ui, Odysseus, Peer Gynt, Tartuffe, Oliver Urban in Krleža’s ‘Leda’, Nick Bottom in ’A Midsummer Night’s Dream’, Lavrentij Beri in Štivičić’s ’Shakespeare at the Kremlin’, etc.
During his career he has worked with many famous directors such as Aleksandar Popovski, Slobodan Unkovski, Eduard Miller, Tomaž Pandur, Paolo Magelli, Staša Zurovac, and many others.
He is a professor at the Acadamy of Dramatic Arts in Zagreb and he is a member of the Gavella Drama Theatre in Zagreb. He has won many awards in both national and international festivals.  
MARJAN NEĆAK
Born in Bitola in 1976. He was interested in music from an early age. He finished primary and secondary music school in Bitola (contrabass and solo-singing), while composing a number of works. He graduated from the Faculty of Applied Arts ESRA Paris-Skopje-New York at the Department of Film and Theatrical Composition. He has worked as a composer for the National Theatre in Bitola since 1996, and he is an associate professor at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Skopje since 2013 where he teaches Song Interpretation. He composes operas, simphonies, chamber music, music for theatre, ballet and musicals, music for film, television, performances, virtual exibits, museum exibits, etc. He has participated in the most important music festivals in Macedonia, ex-Yugoslavia, the Balkans and 20 more countries in the worls. He has won 6 awards for Best Music at the theatre festival Vojdan Černodrinski at Prilep.

MARIN LUKANOVIĆ
Born in Rijeka in 1979, he graduated in film studies from the University of Bologna. Since 2000 he has worked in theatre and on film as a producer, director, video artist and associate on various projects. He is the author of documentary films ’Rikard Benčić, for example’ (co-authored with Nadija Mustapić), ’Theatre in Rijeka’ (Kazalište po riječki), ’Delta - An Affluence of Art’ (Delta-obilje umjetnosti) and Drunk Street (Pijana ulica). For his short film ’A Typical Story’ (Standardna priča) he won the Pula Film Festival Award in 2005. For his documentary Delta-Affluence of Art he won the ArTVision Award ad the 72nd Venice International Film Festival in 2015.
He has collaborated with major theatre companies in Croatia, Slovenia, Serbia and Macedonia. He works as a senior artistic associate at the University of Rijeka.

 

Media excerpts about the play
“To say that Grabarić’s performance and vocal interpretation of the exceptional psychedelic music by Marjan Nećak are studied to the smallest detail would be an understatement. It is not just mysterious and deep, but it discreetly leads up to the culmination. (...) Nećak portrays the madman as a multifaceted and colorful  character on the brink of madness, skillfully leading him on the very verge of the abyss from which there is no retun. One of the biggest surprises of this year’s MOT festival in Skopje. ”  

Todor Kuzmanov, Radio Skopje, Macedonia

 

“Grabarić is a great master of scenic gradation and culmination, only to bring his expression to lower, calmer spheres, and then build it up again and again. He complements Nećak’s musical and spatial ideas perfectly, while videos by Lukanović match both, forming a unique rhythm. (...) Words fail when in comes to describing the way in which Ozren Grabarić performs. One needs to see and hear it, feel his performance and burst into tears for every discarded, persecuted, humiliated, and tortured human being, from the beginning of time until the end of the world.”

Darko Gašparović, kazaliste.hr