HNK2 Theatre Season Opens With a John Malkovich Production

Zagreb’s new theatre season begins with a production directed by John Malkovich, as Sofia’s Ivan Vazov National Theatre opens a new cycle of major European guest performances at HNK2.

The programme, called HNK2EU, or the European Theatre Cycle in Zagreb, became possible after the Croatian National Theatre opened its second stage. The Sofia company’s appearance also serves as a return visit after HNK Zagreb’s Drama performed “Crime and Punishment” in Bulgaria in the spring, in a production directed by Jernej Lorenci, according to HNK intendant Iva Hraste Sočo.

The Ivan Vazov National Theatre is returning to Croatia for the second time in several months. It previously opened the Marulić Days festival in Split with Miroslav Krleža’s “The Glembays,” directed by Ivica Buljan.

In Zagreb, the company will perform George Bernard Shaw’s “Arms and the Man.” First staged in 1894, the comedy became Shaw’s first commercial success and remains one of his most frequently performed works. Through comedy, Shaw mocked views that glorify war and exposed the contradictions behind its romantic image. He placed the story in the context of the Serbian-Bulgarian War, in the home of the Bulgarian officer Petkov after the 1885 Battle of Slivnitsa, near Dragoman.

Malkovich is drawn to Shaw’s criticism of romanticized war, but pushes the idea further by showing the cruelty of wars still raging around the world. The production contrasts Shaw’s idealized setting with a contemporary reality marked by normalized crises, alienation, divisions and seemingly endless conflict. In this reading, war is no longer heroic or a defense of freedom and dignity, but a synonym for suffering, terror and death.

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The Ivan Vazov National Theatre from Sofia is coming to perform at the HNK2 stage, and this is in a sense a return visit after our Drama thrilled Bulgarian audiences in the spring with Crime and Punishment.