Radio Teatar Bajsić, Zagreb/Gavella City Drama Theatre, Zagreb

Author’s project by Pavlica Bajsić Brazzoduro, inspired by “Mediterranean Breviary” by Predrag Matvejević and “Tales from the Neighboring Port (Portulan)” by Olja Savičević Ivančević

Mediterranean Breviary, on the Waves of Radio Mediterranean

Director/Dramaturgy: Pavlica Bajsić Brazzoduro
Set Design: Paula Jakšić
Music: Dino Brazzoduro
Costume Design: Marita Ćopo
Stage Movement: Ana Kreitmeyer

Cast: Filip Šovagović, Sven Medvešek, Dino Brazzoduro, Nenad Kovačić, Chisomo Makunje – Maku, Una Patafta, Anja Matišić, Antonija Stanišić Šperanda, Franjo Dijak, Domagoj Janković, Hrvoje Klobučar

“Firstly, we choose a stance- this time a bay or a scene from it, a harbor or one particular instance, a voyage or its story. Where we started is less significant but what’s important is how far we’ve come, what we’ve seen and the way we saw it. We are bringing these Matvejević’s lines stemming from the probably most widely-translated Croatian book with us on a theatrical-radio journey across the Mediterranean like a sailor would bring his pocket lunch… “Europe was born in the Mediterranean”, says Matvejević in his writings, and today we can also add that- “Europe is dying on the Mediterranean”. What we are facing today is a wounded Mediterranean, the color of which is rapidly turning from blue to red. Europe is simultaneously brought to its knees, unable to solve the current migrant crisis, the ongoing war in Gaza, the misfortunes of the Middle East, the famine in Africa. For the purposes of writing the Breviary and its consistency, Matvejević has travelled the Mediterranean three times- first time literally, second time by emerging himself into the maps of the old, and the third time by reading antique dictionaries, diaries and travelogues. With this play, we invite you to the additional fourth and fifth journey to the Mediterranean. When it comes to the fourth journey, Olja Savičević Ivančević will lead the way, the audience  travelling  with her around places mentioned by Matvejević in the Breviary, studying with her  people’s characters and birds, her  giving them all an authentic voice during the play through everyday life scenes, sketches, anecdotes, gossip, fairy tales and fables from the contemporary  Mediterranean cities. The fifth journey to the Mediterranean, however, is the one of “dark melancholy” and all that through a string of sounds evoking images, audio recordings directly from the places where the tales took place in addition to the music inspired by “Breviary” and Predrag Matvejević’s own voice recorded in 2011. Radiophonic theatre is therefore presented for the first time on the stage of “Gavella” Theatre.