The Catalan

Première 2018
Running time 2 hours 45 minutes. No interval.
Performance is in Croatian with Slovene surtitles.

Director Ivan Penović
Dramturg Franka Perković
Set designer Filip Triplat
Composers Karlo Mrkša, Filip Triplat
Lighting designer Elvis Butković
Video designer Ivan Penović
Graphic designers Miran Bašić, Otto Kušec
Photographers Damir Žižić, Sanja Bistričić
Producer Danijel Popović

Cast
Matija Čigir, Domagoj Janković, Karlo Mrkša, Pavle Vrkljan, Bernard Tomić, Filip Triplat

Apparent possibilities kill silently. They make an individual passive, turning him into a technical component of a machine. The available options alienate a man from everything that is outside the offer.He becomes desensitised at this eternal party where nobody feels good anymore. The Catalan apparently escaped just in time, if he’s even still alive. But that is not important. Once we become aware of our own running in circles, there’s always that thought of an escape. And the society understands such escape as defeat one should not really be talking about loudly. 

We live in the era of the world wide web; we swim in the endless ocean of subjective, biased, planted information that limits choice. There are too many options, but none offer all that we need. So we show off what we think of, what we think of for a second … We don’t tell stories, we show the continuing situation, overloaded with information. The characters in the production aren’t drama characters, either, but they allow that the drama might be taking place elsewhere. 

The Catalan, a witty, authentic and youthfully lucid production in which "actors don’t act", as the author and director says, primarily tackles the lack of understanding for the reasons to flee. Are we fleeing from ourselves?