Cannibals

Opening night January 2020, Left Stage SNT Drama Ljubljana 
Running time 2 hours 45 minutes. One intermission.

Post-performance discussion with the artistic team.

Director Luka Marcen
Dramaturg Tery Žeželj
Scene designer Sara Slivnik
Costume designer Ana Janc
Composers Ema Kobal, Martin Vogrin
Lighting designer Mojca Sarjaš
Stage movement designer Aja Zupanec

Cast 
Peter Pajot Žan Brelih Hatunić
Florijan Falac Gal Oblak
Matilda Lara Fortuna
Marta Julija Klavžar
Maria, later also Resistance Nika Vidic
Majdalenka Lara Wolf
Jack of Hearts, later also Tenente Andraž Haruer
Queen of Clubs Lana Bučevec
Ace of Spades Martin Mlakar
Prior, later also Major Luka Bokšan

Mentors
Acting and directing doc. Matjaž Tribušon, red. prof. Matjaž Zupančič
Scene design izr. prof. mag. Jasna Vastl
Costume design red. prof. Janja Korun, asist. mag. Tina Kolenik
Language and speech izr. prof. dr. Katarina Podbevšek, izr. prof. mag. Alida Bevk

Cannibals are a poetic drama by one of the most unique and expressive Slovenian poets and playwrights, Gregor Strniša. The author subtitled the play as A Dance macabre and through it, thus sketching a world perpetuated by endless hunger and omnipresent fear.
The Second World War is drawing to an end and a family of poor refugees is in search of a hiding place and shelter. They finally take refuge in an abandoned chapel, which its prior lets them use for a peaceful home, serene sleep. But Pajot, the father, also a butcher and a sausage maker, sacrilegiously replaces the ritual of worship with the ritual of patching his hunger and even the ritual of wild, profitable business. There’s no business like war business, after all. In a handily hidden crypt he sets up his workshop and with the excuse that one must survive, kills, slaughters, dismembers, grinds, sells and trades – human flesh. 
Two grotesque clowns, the almost deaf Pajot and his accomplice, the half-blind cook Falac, are caught up in the hellish mechanism of killing, which enables survival using the sarcastic cannibalistic logic. It feeds the family and provides it with peace amidst the bombs and machine-gun fire, but at the same time their actions spin them in the dance of the ironized cannibalistic clown carnival, where dancers’ hands (and necks) are held by the needs of full bellies, betrayals, lies, carnal desire and greed.