The Weir

McPherson's The Weir was performed for the first time in the famous Royal Court Theatre in London ten years ago and from then on it continued its path with a series of premieres on European (one of whom was the one in the Croatian National Theatre in Split) and Broadway stages. At first glance a simple, poetic text filled with dark spirituality may appear to be old-fashioned, or uncommitted, but if we really want to penetrate it, we'll find exceptionally potent acting material, multi-layered characters and a suggestive atmosphere. In a pub, somewhere in the vast Irish countryside, four local men are trying to impress an ''urban'' woman who moved there from the city, telling her creepy, local stories of doubtful authenticity. However, the woman also has her own story, a more personal one, a more tragic one and therefore incomparably more impressive one than their own.The four men thus become transformed, from superficial bar-fellows into people capable of compassion, allowing McPherson to play at the same time skillfully and unobtrusively with the story as a form and the emotion as the content, having faith that human closeness is after all, everywhere and always, possible and above all - healing.

'''90% of our behaviour is animal behaviour, and we've just got this 10% veneer'', says the Irish playwright Conor McPherson, whose play The Weir, was directed by Mateja Koležnik for Gavella Theatre. (...) Definitely worth seeing!" (Želimir Ciglar, "Večernji list)

"The Slovene director Mateja Koležnik has managed to incorporate brilliant actors into an impressive and fragile strucutre and the sad, hour-and-a-half play is gripping to the end. (...) Ozren Grabarić is brilliant and has evolved, within a short, two-year span, into perhaps our best, young, character actor" (Tomislav Čadež, "Jutarnji list")
Ivo Knezović's stylized scenography has more emphasized the healing aerialness of nature than the possible stuffiness of the province. Thus we got a story, along with great actors such as Dražen Kühn, Sven Šestak, Ksenija Pajić, Sven Medvešek and the outstanding Ozren Grabarić, that can be told anywhere and in which we feel that it could be a story about any of us. (Bojan Munjin, Croatian Radio, "Lica i sjene"/''Faces and Shadows)

"... Mateja Koležnik has relocated The Weir from a general scenographic position, staging it in a somewhat old-fashioned manner and relying primarily on the cooperation of the actors who haven't let her down. If only this Weir would open the way for other McPherson's work toward Croatian theatres. (...) After a short creative break in Gavella, Dražen Kuhn has once again shined in the role of Jack, a middle-aged mechanic, who justifies his loneliness quite unconvincigly by the need for freedom.
(Matko Botić, "Kulisa.eu")