Maurice Maeterlinck
Blue Bird
L’oiseau bleu
Director: Ivana Djilas
Fairy play about desire
Belgian playwright, poet and essay writer Maurice Maeterlinck (1862–1949) moved from Gent, a town where he was born and which was "good, dull, old town, hermetically closed to all literature” into a cosmopolitan and bohemian Paris because he was thirsty for the absolute and the unknown. It was there that he got the chance to deepen his love of spiritualism, fatalism, metaphysics, mysticism and symbolism, which are all reflected in his first plays, which were given excellent reviews. At the performance of his first play Princess Maleine, critic Octave Mirabeau called Maeterlinck a "Belgian Shakespeare”. Maeterlinck was a poet even when he wrote plays, which is why his plays awakened a symbolic dreamlike atmosphere by its metaphysical aesthetics, unique perspective of the world, dreamlike logic and dramaturgy. Up until 1911 when he was awarded the Nobel Prize, he had written the following plays: The Blind (1890), Intruder (1890), Seven Princesses (1891), Pelléas and Mélisande (1892), Interior (1894), The Death of Tintagiles (1894), Princess Maleine (1899), Monna Vanna (1902), The Double Garden (1904) and the famous fairy tale play about longing called The Blue Bird (1908). A crucial influence on Maeterlinck’s life and work was an actress and an intimate friend by the name Georgette Leblanc, for whom he permanently moved to France in 1897. However, The Blue Bird brought a new muse into his life – a young actress called Renée Dahon. In 1911 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. After the war he transformed into a philosopher of death. "I will have no regrets leaving this world that I failed to understand.”
The Blue Bird (1908) is a fairy tale play in six acts and twelve scenes. It was premiered in the Moscow Art Theatre under direction of Konstantin Stanislavski. The allegoric and fantastic story The Blue Bird newly translated by Primož Vitez, accompanies the dreamlike journey of Tyltyl and his little sister Mytyl as the fairy called Beriluna sends them to find the Blue Bird, who could heal her ill granddaughter. As a farewell gift she gives them a magical hat with a diamond, which they use to visit the Land of the Memory, open doors which reveal the secrets of nature, see the Gardens of Happiness, visit the Kingdom of the Future, but they cannot find the Blue Bird. Blue birds slip away like happiness – for a moment we see them, hear their song, sometimes they are so close we can even touch them, but we can never catch them and keep them only to ourselves.
From the interview with director Ivana Djilas: "The performance will be based on establishing atmospheres, rhythms, movements, relations among bodies … therefore it is not a coincidence that I have invited Sonja Vukićević – a ballet dancer, choreographer and actress – to help us conjure a Blue Bird’s dream world.”
Cast
Matevž BiberMirjana Šajinović
Nejc Ropret
Mateja Pucko
Branko Jordan
Irena Varga
Maša Žilavec
Ivica Knez
Mojca Simonič
Davor Herga
Miha Bezeljak k. g.
Viktor Meglič
Matija Stipanič
Cast: Mateja Pucko, Mojca Simonič, Mirjana Šajinović, Irena Varga, Maša Židanik, Miha Bezeljak, Matevž Biber, Branko Jordan, Ivica Knez, Viktor Meglič, Nejc Ropret, Matija Stipanič
Photo gallery
Photo: Damjan Švarc
Photo: Damjan Švarc
Photo: Damjan Švarc
Photo: Damjan Švarc
Photo: Damjan Švarc
Photo: Damjan Švarc
Photo: Damjan Švarc
Photo: Damjan Švarc
Photo: Damjan Švarc
Photo: Damjan Švarc
Photo: Damjan Švarc
Photo: Damjan Švarc
Photo: Damjan Švarc
Photo: Damjan Švarc
Photo: Damjan Švarc
Photo: Damjan Švarc
Photo: Damjan Švarc
Photo: Damjan Švarc
Photo: Damjan Švarc
Photo: Damjan Švarc
