Dark Eyes

Davor Špišić, an extremely fruitful writer from Osijek, a prose writer and a playwright, has already been staged in Gavella Theatre. His play Alabama, which won the Marin Držić Award, was loved by the audience and acknowledged by the critics. However, the untimely passing away of the actress Marina Nemet has extinguished its life on the stage too soon. Written to the order of the theatre in Frankopanska street, the newest play by Špišić is not only a hommage, but also a kind of modern ''dramatic reaction'' to the legendary production of this theatre - Sokol ga nije volio (Sokol Did not Love Him) by Fabijan Šovagović. Above all, Sokol was a powerful story, written by one of our greatest actors, who played one of his best roles in it. Like Šovagović, Špišić also places the action in a familiar environment - Slavonija, only that of the 90's. Two families, one Croatian and one Serbian, are unbreakably bonded and at odds with each other because of the war. In an exceptional dramatic structure - in terms of the composition - Špišić brings them closer together and moves them further apart, only to lead them into a situation from which there is no other way out except tragedy. Here, as it was the case with Alabama, the tragedy of the whole is softened by warm humour and masterfully shaped dialogues, which contain the unique character of the layered Slavonian mentality. Dražen Ferenčina has already directed plays by Špišić and in Dark Eyes Špišić is called to lay out and question the painful story of, in many ways, specific surroundings, at a time when it was very hard to get by there. The war in Croatia is still, undoubtedly, a current and interpretably rich subject matter, so far mostly neglected in dramatic terms. Also, this text is approaching it from a standpoint the politics avoids or isn't capable of: a human one. For behind global turmoils and conflicts, a man's destiny remains his own; he is the one who suffers the consequences of the decisions which are made by those in power, usually from somewhere safe. Behind a global gain lies a personal loss - it is there where the most vulnerable place of every freedom and every country is hidden. Dark Eyes boldly dives into that space, appearing as a shocking play, capable to speak of the universally human and ''great'' through the ordinary, the everyday, the ''little''.

''When the silence after a performance lasts for those several significant moments, it means that the audience is signaling that it is deeply impressed by the stories on the stage and can't immediatelly come back to reality. On Saturday night, the audience at Gavella...used those few seconds to wipe its tears away. (...) Davor Špišić's text is wonderful in its layers, but also in its simplicity. There are no right ones and wrong ones in it, nothing is black and white...'' (Bojana Radović, ''Večernji list'')

''''Dark Eyes'' is a play which boldly talks of an era, with no benignity, with lots of good eyesight and even anticipating events to come... What gives the text of ''Dark Eyes'' irrefutable good quality are not just the live-like, often funny dialogues, down-to-earth sincere and warm, indestructible in their primordial sorrow, but also the internal honesty, plasticity when treating the events, not giving definite answers and not taking sides. It's as if the writer and the director are asking: ''How to remain a good man in the end, when everything turns against the man?'''' (Helena Braut, ''Vjesnik'')

''Darko Milas in the role of Slavonian pater familias literally gave his all...'' (Matko Botić, KAZALIŠTE.hr)

''''Dark Eyes'' speak of the era and the events many people would like to surpress, mostly because talking of pain - hurts. However, the therapeutic value of theatre lies precisely in the fact that through the dialogue there is talk of an acute trauma in order to blunt its blade and for the organism, by reliving the trauma through speech, to reject most of it and turn away from the past towards the present and the future.'' (Želimir Ciglar, ''Vijenac'')