A Second Past

About the performance

The production is 4 hours and 40 minutes long and has two intervals.

Vinko Möderndorfer constructs A Second Past in the same manner as a painter paints a fresco, dispersing many details in various parts of the painting, barely perceptible to the naked eye, and yet significantly contributing to its totality. It is a tiny moment that can change the course of history, and it is the next generations that are capable of reflecting upon the decisive significance of the moment.

In terms of staging, the adaptation by Tatjana Doma and Luka Marcen aims to preserve the fresco-like appeal of the novel. It seeks to construct a performance language for a novel-like fresco by employing a remarkable and powerful stage collective on its journey through the turbulences of history functioning like a well-oiled mechanism with clockwork precision. The staging principle, i.e., the directorial-dramaturgical driving force of the production, is a montage, the framing of views and voices observing the same event from different perspectives simultaneously, steering the course of history in different directions for them (and us). What ensues is a second past. The only redeeming feature of history is a collective that is eager to remember and talk about it, devoid of any ideological bias.

A Second Past is a story of a past that becomes a second past after individual destinies are juxtaposed and disclosed; it is a story of minor events with major consequences, a story of love that can be a destructive or a saving force. It tells a relatable story of each one of us having "a second past" defining us and determining one’s present; it tells stories uniting into the story of a life.

"The biggest feature of the adaptation and the direction is undoubtedly in the selection and transformations of the characters and the complex casting – 14 actors and actresses play 34 roles (plus a few silent group scenes)." Petra Vidali, Večer, 19 October 2023

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