Heiner Müller's Macbeth after Shakespeare Plays La MaMa 12/8-11

Since its world premiere in Ljubljana nearly three years ago, the Mini teater (Ljubljana, Slovenia) / Novo kazalište Zagreb (Croatia) co-production of Heiner Müller's controversial Macbeth after Shakespeare has garnered critical praise and awards all over the world, including such far-flung locales as Seoul and Havana. The work, directed by Mini teater co-founder Ivica Buljan-director of Zagreb Youth Theatre's equally physical The Garage, at La MaMa last year-will make its North American premiere December 8-11 at La MaMa's Ellen Stewart Theatre (66 East 4th Street, 2nd floor).

Performances of Macbeth after Shakespeare will take place at Thursday-Saturday at 7:30 P.M. and Sunday at 2:30 P.M. Tickets are $30 ($25 for seniors and students) and can be purchased by visiting www.lamama.org, calling 212.475.7710 or visiting the La MaMa box office at 74A East 4th Street. Critics are welcome as of the first performance, which will mark the show's official opening.

In Macbeth after Shakespeare, Buljan directs a company of nine performers, led by the virtuosic Marko Mandi?, and including Milena Zupan?i?, Polona Vetrih, Jurij Drevenšek, Jure Henigman, Jose, Stipe Kostani?, Domen Vali?, Anže Zevnik.

This adaptation of the Muller text was translated from the German by Milan Štefe. The creative team also includes Ana Savi? Gecan (costume design), son: DA (set design), Mitja Vrhovnik Smrekar (composer), Tanja Zgonc (chorephrapher), Diana Koloini (dramaturg), Mateja Dermelj (language consultant) and Robert Waltl (producer).

Of Heiner Müller's several variations on Shakespeare texts, his Macbeth after Shakespeare was perhaps the most divisive. Soon after the 1971 publication of the script, the philosopher Wolfgang Harich, among others, attacked Müller for the pessimism and vulgarity of his interpretation, which brought to the text a preoccupation, then common in West German culture, with violence and pornography. By 1972, Müller had published a commentary explaining his approach: From the first scene, he felt the need for modification; he wanted to remove the idea of predestination. So, no witches or supernatural forces appear in Müller's text. Instead, the action of the play fits into a history of violence with no beginning and no end. Each murder leads to others, and the cycle of violence becomes more and more horrible at each turn.

Müller has condensed the work; crimes follow one another with increasing speed. The monologues are radically shortened; there are no more moments of reflection and scruples. The playwright shows no hesitation in making his heroes even darker. He presents no one in a positive light. In the instructions at the beginning of the third scene, even King Duncan is sitting on a heap of corpses arranged in the shape of a throne. Macbeth is a bloody tyrant merely continuing the work of some other bloody tyrant.

Müller gives Macbeth a sociological dimension. He focuses on peasants and soldiers instead of the aristocratic elite. Numerous stage instructions indicate the suffering that people have to endure under the pressure of nobility. The piece offers no utopian belief in a revolution that might change the world. In the ninth scene, Macduff nails the doorman to the door with a stroke of a sword for having not opened the door soon enough; later he cuts a servant's tongue out because he doesn't like something the servant says.

Buljan is an apt interpreter of Müller's visceral, violent Macbeth. He has successfully staged Mülller's Quartet and was last in New York as the director of Zagreb Youth Theatre's The Garage, about an underground fighting club, which a four-star review in Time Out NY described as a "theatrical punch to the gut." Backstage praised Buljan's fight choreography as "frantic, imprecise, and absolutely gripping."

About Ivica Buljan (Director)

Ivica Buljan was born 1965 in Sinj, Croatia. He studied Political Sciences, French and Literature as well as Comparative literature at the University of Zagreb. As a journalist he worked with the magazines Polet and Start. He served as theater critic for the daily paper Slobodna Dalmacija and is a member of the editorial council of the theatre magazine Prolog. At first, he worked as dramaturg-in Slovenia, France, and Croatia-collaborating with directors such as Vito Taufer, Christian Colin, Jean Michel Bruyere, Krizstof Warlikowski, Ivan Popovski and Robert Waltl.

His productions have been seen in international festivals in Portugal, Spain, Italy, Venezuela, Austria, Greece, Macedonia, Belgium, Switzerland, Russia, Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iran, Poland, Albania and, of course, Slovenia. From 1998 to 2002, he was the Manager of the Croatian National Drama Theatre in Split. He is also the co-founder of the theatre Mini teater in Ljubljana, where he often works as a director or dramaturg.

He has received a number of prestigious awards, including the Dubravko Djušin Award (1997, for Phaedra), the Petar Bre?i? Award (1999, for his theatre essays), the Peristil Award (2001, for Oedipus), the Borštnik Diploma and a Special Award from the Jury (2004, for Schneewittchen After Party), the Medal of the City of Havana (2005, for Medea Material), the Borštnik Diploma for best direction and best performance (2007, for Oedipus in Corinth).

Recent directing credits include Zdenko Mesari?'s Garage (ZKM Zagreb, at La MaMa, 2010); Marina Tsvetaeva's Vampire (SMG Ljubljana, 2010); Euripides' Cyclops (Scena Gorica, 2010); Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (MGL Ljubljana, 2010); Dubravka Ugreši?'s Baba Jaga (HNK Rijeka, 2011); and Bernard-Marie Koltes's Nickel Stuff (Mladinsko theatre Ljubljana, 2011).
About Mini teater (Co-Producer)

Robert Waltl and Ivica Buljan founded Mini teater in 1999 to enhance creativity in post-drama theatre and the theatre for the young. The company has a paradoxical dual mission: to be an elite theatre yet also populist, eccentric and attractive to a wide audience.

The company has taken on a variety of texts, including works by Bernard-Marie Koltès, Heiner Müller, Robert Walser, Elfriede Jelinek, Jean Genet, Hervé Guibert, Arthur Rimbaud, A. S. Pushkin and Hans Christian Andersen, among others. Mini teater's productions have been directed by I. Buljan, A. Anurov, P. Calvario, S. Nordey, R. Waltl and J. Ivanc, and have featured exceptional actors such as M. Zupan?i?, M. Mandi?, V. Drolc, A. Kari?, S. Buli?, P. Vetrih, J. Sou?ek. Notable visual artists (V. Fiškin, S. Tolj, B. Cain, T. Gverovi?, SON:da, T. Gotovac, M. Jakše, etc.) and prominent musicians and composers (Mitja Vrhovnik Smrekar, The Beat Fleet, Jose, Ditka Haberl, Dunja Vejzovi?, Tamara Obrovac) have collaborated with them.

Mini teater gives approximately five hundred performances each year in Ljubljana, across Slovenia and abroad, as well as festivals in Moscow, Naples, Havana, Warsaw, Vienna, Brussels, Sarajevo, Belgrade, Cairo and Tehran. The company has collaborated with numerous Croatian institutions like Novo Kazalište Zagreb, ARL Dubrovnik, Zadar Snova, Teatar ITD and HNK Rijeka.

Mini teater has won a number of awards and recognitions for its theatrical achievements in Slovenia and abroad.

Novo kazalište

Novo kazalište was founded in 2002 to promote contemporary theatrical practice within the independent scene of Zagreb, Croatia and Europe. Its mission is to stage internationally important, modern texts and multimedia, post-drama theatre that incorporates acting, dancing, text, visual design, costumes and music.
Novo kazalište has staged works including Snow White by Robert Walser; Medea Material, Quartet and Macbeth After Shakespeare by Heiner Müller; The Day of Murders in the Story of Hamlet and The March by Bernard Marie-Koltés; Jackie by Elfriede Jelinek; and Kraljevo by Miroslav Krleža with the Theatre Federation of the Ivory Coast.

Novo kazalište has taken part in international festivals such as the NET in Moscow, The Festival of Festivals in Warsaw, the Roznava Actores Festival in Slovakia, the Saint Etienne Festival in France, The Festival of the New Theatre in Naples, the MESS in Sarajevo, The International Festival of Experimental Theatre in Cairo, The International Festival in Havana, the Udine SEAS Festival in Italy and The International Festival in Albania, among others.

About La MaMa

The arts institution La MaMa has a worldwide reputation for producing cutting-edge work in theater, dance, performance art, and music. Founded in 1961 by theater pioneer and legend Ellen Stewart, La MaMa has produced and presented more than 3,000 theatrical productions to date and is a vital part of the fabric of cultural life in New York City and around the world.

La MaMa provides a supportive home for artists and takes risks on unknown work. Artists such as Sam Shepard, Lanford Wilson, Philip Glass, Robert Wilson, Harvey Fierstein, Blue Man Group, David and Amy Sedaris (and others whose names you haven't heard of yet) began their careers at La MaMa. International Artists introduced to America by La MaMa include Tadeusz Kantor, Andrei Serban, Kazuo Ohno and, more recently, the acclaimed Belarus Free Theatre. La MaMa has been honored with more than 30 OBIE Awards, dozens of Drama Desk and Bessie Awards, and, in 2006, Ellen Stewart was recognized with a special TONY Award for Excellence in the Theatre.