Troupe

In the contemporary Slovenian theatre Jernej Lorenci (b. 1973) holds the place of the most individual, artistically insightful and searching theatre director, not only in his generation but across several generations.

Since its very beginnings, Lorenci’s creativity has been marked by research and development of the theatre medium. In recent years, he has carried out important shifts in his theatre aesthetics also on the level of interaction between stage and the “active spectator”, on the level of destroying and re-establishing the theatre illusion within the individual performance.

The interpreters in Lorenci’s performances continuously carry a specific message across the theatre apron: that they’re aware of the spectator’s presence, that the spectator is the reason for their being on stage and that it is only with the spectator that the rounded world of the performance truly comes to life. But Lorenci warns actors as well that the theatre community is only complete with the spectators – he carefully selects scenes in which the hall also remains lit, in which the actor not only feels the audience, but also sees it, breathes with it. These directorial measures create a very special link between the stage and the auditorium. In The Crazy Locomotive, for example, the audience members sometimes have the role of the people left behind on the platform after the train has left and to whom the actors wave goodbye and at times the role of passengers who embark on an exciting journey with the actors and are pulled along by the wild rhythm of the train. In the next scene they are – together with the actors – reminded that it is all just theatre, that together with the actors they’re on one imaginary train because this is what they’ve decided and they want to play this game.  

Jernej Lorenci is a creator with recognisable aesthetics who creates across genres; he’s never schematic or predictable, always artistically curious and innovative. In addition to the numerous awards in Slovenia (in 2012 The Tempest received a whole nine awards at the Maribor Theatre Festival, among them the awards for the best performance of the festival and for directing; at the same festival in 2013 the The Crazy Locomotive received the award for the best performance, the year after, the same award went to The Wedding while the performance The Dead Man Comes for His Sweetheart won the award of the Association of Theatre Critics and Theatre Researchers of Slovenia for the best performance of the season of 2013/2014). Lorenci has won numerous awards abroad, among them the award for The Tempest at the Belgrade theatre festival BITEF (2013). In 2014 Jernej Lorenci received one of the highest state awards for the achievements in the field of culture in Slovenia, the Prešeren Fund Award.