I Thought the End of the World Were Different

Premiere May 2021, Modern Gallery Ljubljana 
Running time 1 hour 50 minutes. No interval.
With post-performance discussion. 

Translators Dorica Nadoh (Susn); Marko Bratuša (Človeški glas); Eva Balantič, Mojca Ficko, Ines Metličar, Svetlana Pavlin, Iva Vogrič, Vanesa Zaman (Izjemno življenje)
Director Dorian Šilec Petek
Dramaturge Jaka Smerkolj Simoneti
Set deigner Sara Slivnik
Costume designer Tina Bonča
 
Cast
Gaja Filač
Klara Kuk
Lea Mihevc
Veronika Železnik
 
Mentors
Stage acting and theatre directing doc. Branko Jordan, izr. prof. Jernej Lorenci
Language and speech doc. dr. Nina Žavbi

A spoken word becomes a thing. And as a thing, it starts saying other things. These things speak other and other and other things. God’s creation is a linguistic procedure; reality is a history of named concepts. The human speaks God, and God speaks the human. Speech is the perfect other, the human’s double, genius and reflection, a response to solitude and the unbearableness of freedom. Speech is a partner, a brother, a father, with whom we need to be one and in this oneness safe from the unknown world outside. In the cacophony of the incomprehensible speech, we can feel the fear of the inflation of things, the inflation of words that all at the same time wish to speak the entire world, and none at once. Meagre words that fight each other for power and existence. They wither and die so that others can be born out of them, just a little bit poorer. They fall and shout, scream and talk themselves into the lie and unrecognisable tragedy of the human effort to not be alone, to not be naked. To be safe. To be full. To wish for the end of the world is a response. A hope for another world that we won’t be able to think through words. The end of the world is a desire for silence, a search for intimate linguistic confrontation with the world that remains outside after the word dies. Back into silence. Into peace.