BRANKO GAVELLA’S LEGACY IN ŠTIMAC’S DIRECTIONS OF THE GLEMBAY FAMILY CYCLE

Abstract

The directorial engagement and acting in Anđelko Štimac’s performances in Glembay family cycle reveals not only his knowledge, but also his following of basic theoretical and practical knowledge specific to Branko Gavella. His presentational solutions typical for realizations of this cycle indicate Štimac’s preference for critical penetration into the core of dramaturgical tissue, i.e. his endeavours in distinguishing the unique social structure to which The Glembays belong, with reference to isolated »spoken live action« as the foundation of the entire scene in »quality« laden dramaturgical facture. The specificity of these Rijeka performances lies solely in their directorial approach – a tendency toward sociological interpretation, i.e. emphasized psychological shading. In the same way, directorial-dramaturgical searches are directed towards questioning the actor’s speech on one side, and towards the relationship between actor and audience on the other, which in our opinion, explicitly leads to the basic principles of the theory of acting which Gavella anticipated. Based on the reconstruction of the plays – Leda, U agoniji and Gospoda Glembajevi (Leda, In Agony and The Glembays) – performed on the stage of the Croatian National Theater Ivan pl. Zajc in Rijeka, we shall try to expound the above said as precisely as possible