Gregor Butala on Saint Joan of the Stockyards, “Dvenik”, November 9 2024

In the slaughterhouse of capitalism
Gregor Butala, “Dvenik”, November 9th 2024
https://www.dnevnik.si/kultura/oder/v-klavnici-kapitalizma-2700717/
“[…] “We have been imagining staging Saint Joan of the Stockyards for many years; in fact, we often refer to Brecht’s influence, among others, in our work, which is why we have always wanted to direct one of his plays”, explains Agata Tomšič, who was born in Koper and studied performing arts theory in Bologna, to devote herself over time to acting, writing and directing. “This text still retains a contemporary feel, because Brecht wrote it with the intention of denouncing the workings of the capitalist system in which we are still trapped today, even though the centers of production have meanwhile moved to other parts of the world – that is, in a situation of constant crisis, in which a few people live luxuriously at the expense of the over-exploitation of natural resources and all other living things.”
But staging it was not easy. “This play was written for an extremely large cast, which is impossible to stage under the current conditions, especially of the Italian theater system, which does not have fixed ensembles of actors. On the other hand, we usually elaborate our projects starting from original dramaturgies and very rarely from pre-existing texts: we gladly took up this challenge, but it took some time to find the right way to deal with it.” The turning point came when they realized that the Black Hats religious community, to which the protagonist (played by Agata Tomšič) initially belongs, reminded them of the cult band Laibach. “It’s a collective united by a strong ideology, marching to the sound of drums and chants – we thought: it’s like Brecht had written these characters for Laibach”, Davide Sacco recalls. The group was ready to collaborate: they composed the original music based on Brecht’s texts that is performed live in the show, while representing the members of this religious order on stage, and also designed the entire sound design. […]”