Platonov or A Play Without a Title

''A Play Without a Title'', also known as ''Platonov'', is the oldest preserved play by A.P. Chekhov. It was published in 1923, nearly twenty years after the author's death, ''hiding'' until then in Chekhov's drawers in Moscow's Central Archive. With 21 speech roles and the integral length of a 160 pages this is also the playwright's longest work, mostly staged in adapted versions. The direction has been entrusted to Samo M. Strelec, we may well say the regular collaborator of the theatre in Frankopanska street. His ''Fourth Sister'', which has been on our repertoire for five years, and ''Wit'' were distinctively actors' plays with a series of exceptional performances, so it's only natural to expect ''a feast for the actor'', as well as the audience, in ''A Play Without a Title''. Because Platonov, Ana Petrovna, Sofya Yegorovna, Osip or Voynitzev are challenging and multi-layered characters, completely equal to the ones in ''Three Sisters'', ''Uncle Vanya'', ''The Seagull'' or ''The Cherry Orchard''. The existentially-romantic plot, melodramatically coloured, in the centre of which stands a young and for the women fatal teacher Platonov, is very contemporary in its ''sense of life''. Platonov is intelligent, yet lost, lucid, yet incapable of making a decision, disappointed in the world, whose meaning he can't see, and the people, whose actions he can't understand. All of the ''flings'' he has seem to be happening to him accidentally, it might even seem as against his will - his wife is suffering for it, his mistresses are surprised when they find out there is another one and he comments all of that with a laconic self-irony: ''It's better I killed them in a surge of passion, the Spanish way, than to destroy them little by little, the Russian way.'' A combination of Don Juan and Hamlet it is a character who destroys himself and anything that approaches him, while the audience is rooting for him and is at the same time disgusted by him, not fully realizing whether they don't see or don't want to see what he is doing to those who love him. Led by the new member of our ensemble, Živko Anočić in the role of Platonov, this play was announced by the director as a ''summer, passionate, erotic'' one, full of body, lust, unrest and struggle.

''...There are many reasons why one should see ''Platonov'' in Gavella Theatre. (...) The usage of attractive stage props like a remote-controlled helicopter played with by Sergey Pavlovich Voynitsev or the motorcycle which Osip rides on the stage will definitely appeal to the younger members of the audience to whom, it seems, this shortened - though not short - and refreshened play with a ''festive'' mood is intended to.'' (Lidija Zozoli, Vijenac)

''Playing the title role, Živko Anočić has proved that he is definitely capable of portraying a complex, dramatic protagonist and that his charisma on stage can suggestively affect the audience. (...) Bojana Gregorić Vejzović as the general's wife is virtuously controlling the situation where she uses her youth and beauty as a widow to maintain the luxurious way of life even at the time when she gets more and more indebted. (...) Perhaps the most complete role among the female cast who gravitate towards the protagonist is portrayed by Ivana Roščić as Grekova, who is equally persuasive in her initial hatred as in the later naive trust in Platonov. (...) Gavella Theatre has an ensemble which is able to successfully perform grand and complex productions.'' (Tomislav Kurelec, Kazalište.hr)

''With their energy, intensity and presence, Bojana Gregorić Vejzović and, even more so, Janko Rakoš, take precedence in this production. (...) A standard, which shouldn't be lowered, has been set with the Slovene guest director.'' (Igor Ružić, T-portal)

''The best roles are certainly that of Dijana Vidušin and Hrvoje Klobučar, because we trusted them, as well as Sven Šestak in his, well almost a miniature.'' (Bojana Radović, Večernji list)