Solo No Peek
Solo No Peek is a short (60 minutes) theatre piece based on a story about 5 friends placed together in a cold place, not facing each other, hardly talking. Soon we find out that they are actually waiting at the police station and that it’s shortly after the death of their mutual friend with whom they’d celebrated his birthday. In a doomed situation – that none of them is really able to deal with – conflicts start to occur. Step by step they are revealing to us what was happening at the casino where they were partying. First we are convinced that their friend commited suicide, we are witnessing their incompatible perspectives on the issue of suicide, but further we go, the more clear becomes to us, that we don’t know what really happened at the casino and that persons in front of us are most likely not what they appear to be. There’s more and more evidence of a mutual mistrust and terror between them. It all slowly boils down to the horrifying fact that each and everyone of them has a motif for murdering the friend. Who really killed him? Are they suspects or witnesses? Are they really friends or do they only bluff to be such? Who really are they? Human beings – or just appearances of a human kind?
Perhaps we get the answer in the second part of the show – with no words, with no dialogue, with no acting. On the other hand – perhaps the second part of Solo no peek doesn’t give the answer or raise questions, but just – walks by.
Project by Simona Semenič and Rok Vevar
Premiere: 03.11.03 and 01.12.03, Theatre Glej
About Authors
Solo No Peek, that was premiered in November 2003, is a second theatre work of Rok Vevar and Simona Semenič – a young directors’ team that started to work together at Academy for theatre, radio, film and TV in Ljubljana, Slovenia in 1998 – and was extremely well received both by the public and by critics. Co-produced by Maska Ljubljana and GLEJ Theatre, Solo No Peek has been recently compared to the work of Richard Maxwell, a rising star and a promise of a contemporary american theatre.
After the theatre debut of Rok Vevar and Simona Semenič, ‘A Fistful of Empty Hands’ that was premiered in Dance Theatre Ljubljana in December 2001 and characterized by critics as ‘a splendering gift of pure and unpretentious beauty’, in Solo No Peek authors – as an opposite to ‘A Fistful of Emty Hands’ that was based on the storytelling hands’ gestures – decided to use a text (written by themselves). Staged as a delicate, minimal ‘full-length situation’ for 5 actors and persona in absentia, Solo No Peek deals with an ethical, existential state of generation that German philosopher Robert Kurtz described with a term – ‘The World as Will and Design’.
In March this year both attended a young playwrights workshop with Slovene dramatists Draga Potocnjak, Matjaz Zupancic and Graham Whybrow of Royal Court Theatre at the Festival of Slovene drama in Presernovo Theatre in Kranj (Slovenia). ‘Solo No Peek’ has been chosen to the 2004 selection of the same festival as well.
Cast and Crew
Text and concept: Simona Semenič, Rok Vevar
Directed by Simona Semenič, Rok Vevar
Performed by Lara Jankovič, Manica Ogorevc, Vito Rožej, Sebastijan Starič, Rok Vevar
Choreography: Petra ŽistY
Set and costume design: Irena Grošelj
Sound design and music: Peter Kus
Musicians: Srečko Meh – violin/ Sonja Vukovič – viola/ Pavle Rakar – cello/ Matevž Mercina – bass/ Andrej Žibert – electric guitar/ Peter Kus – Bb clarinet
Music recorded in Studio Alien, Ljubljana, by Aleš Trpnik,
Lighting Design: Igor Remeta, Jaka Šimenc
Technician: Igor Remeta
Press and catalogue photos: Nada Žgank
Graphic design: Ajax Studio
Puppet made by Žiga Vojska
Executive producer: Nataša Zavolovšek
Co-produced by MASKA Ljubljana & GLEJ Theatre
Post-production: Rok Vevar, Simona Semenič and Špela Trošt, for Maska Productions
Premiered: 30.11.03 at GLEJ Theatre, Ljubljana.
