Stela, the Flood

The dramaturgist, dramatist and novelist Dino Pešut, five-time laureate of the Marin Držić Award for dramatic works, the second to last being for Stela, the Flood. In the citation to the award, it has been noted that “This work, of a sombre vitality and of powerful desires, Stela, the Flood is a dedication to the theatre as an art form and to its actresses as its life-blood, a dramatic elegy about loneliness and estrangement, about mistaken decisions and a search for one’s identity. The hotel room and its characters that trip over one another and run into one another, repulsing one another due to their inability, or perhaps unwillingness to love and to be loved, to keep each other warm, are more than enough for a whole succession of passionate conflicts whose participants, as if boxers in a boxing-ring so to speak lose breath and refuse to give in. Stela, the Flood is an inspired dramatic work, at once profuse and minimalist, magnificent and self-sufficient, it stands on its own legs. The flood at its end which percolates and indelibly dampens everything in its path, like a tear-drop that is a river, a torrent and an ocean, and its visages are, just as all of us are, its “little wet gods run aground onto the beach.” Selma Spahić, the director from Bosnia and Herzegovina whose theatre productions have been set on stage in many a theatre in the region, like Dino Pešut, belongs to a young, fresh new generation of theatrically-oriented artists, and her focus on today’s internal conflicts and odysseys, across both her strength and her tenderness, reveals a sensitivity appropriate to Stela, the Flood.

“It’s a happy encounter, the one between Selma Spahić with the author of the play in this production in Zagreb’s Gavella Theatre. This isn’t their first collaboration, and this time they’ve achieved a harmonious collaboration that is rarely to be found in the local theatrical scene, thus the result is obvious. The actors have displayed an honest affection for the roles they’ve put on, the cast is fantastic and among these eight actors and actresses, not one is anything but excellent.” (Tomislav Čadež, Jutarnji list)

“Through this actress’ tale, Dino Pešut writes about a world he evidently knows well - a world of creativity and supposedly God-given talents which allows no room for others. Its victims are the actress’ children, partner, even the passers-by that run past her life. (...) It is sincerely a great joy that this work by Pešut was first staged in the Gavella Theatre, because Stela, the Flood seems almost as if it was written with the theatre’s prime actress in mind, Jelena Miholjević. The merger of her incredible talents with her lack of inhibitions and restraints in her performance here is the primary factor that underlines the quality of this production, because one simply has to see this play and this performance.” (Bojana Radović, Večernji list)

“Darko Stazić has brilliantly managed to give life to the character Drago, Gavella’s former director and Stela’s partner, a gay man in love with her son Mak, a man who has seen better days and who, in effect, like a guardsman, is there to keep Stela’s exploits in check. Tena Nemet Brankov hit the right notes with the character Hana, Stela’s daughter, a leftist and an employee of the Ministry of Culture who loves to suffer and is incessantly tired and exhausted, walled into her own world and as if vaccinated against the more tempestuous human emotions. Filip Križan, in the role of Stela’s son Mak, a successful director awarded with many a Berlin bear, is more than just focused on his poor relationship with this overly-attached mother who has managed to wreck his life... (...) Ksenija Pajić in the role of the frustrated journalist Ivana who has come to exclusively interview Stela throws open the question of contemporary journalism whilst at the same time offering the problems of women’s liberation. Ivana’s discussion with Stela in the hotel room is one of the best scenes of the play, in which we witness a demystification of the (lack of) ethics and the injustice that is celebrity journalism in which both great actresses with dedication perform their roles. (...) To the verisimilitude as well as the high spirits of the play are tightly bound Sven Šestak in the role of Martin, Marko Petrić as Jakov and Igor Kovač as the Bosniak Senad.” (Nina Ožegović, T-portal)

"The performance teems with emotions and intimate, abrupt flips, with its brilliant actresses led by Jelena Miholjević." (Snježana Pavić, Globus)

“(...) in Igor Paušek’s exemplary stage design. Well thought-out and well fitted to their roles, Marita Ćopo’s costumes raise the standard of the entire performance, which is also subtly, musically enveloped by Alen and Nenad Sinkauz. Pravdan Davlahović’s skills in choreographing the actors in its individual scenes makes them actors in a choreo-dramatic world, along with Zdravko Stolnik’s contribution in lighting design.” (Mira Muhoberac, Vijenac)