Knut Hamsun

Hunger

Photo: Miha Fras

Mini teater Ljubljana and Ptuj City Theatre

Première : 14. 6. 2015, Mini teater Ljubljana; 4. 9. 2015, Ptuj City Theatre
Running time 2 hours 45 minutes. One interval.

Original title Sult

Translator Marija Zlatnar Moe
Author of adaptation, dramaturg and director Janez Pipan
Composer Mitja Vrhovnik Smrekar
Set designer Sanja Jurca Avci
Costume designer Ana Savić Gecan
Lighting designer Andrej Hajdinjak
Language consultant Barbara Rogelj
Assistant stage manager Matej Primec

Cast
Marko Mandić
Ylajali Nina Rakovec
Captain on a Russian ship/Blind Old Man/Merchant Christie/Editor/Police Officer on Duty Brane Grubar
Pawnbroker/Constable/"Virgin”/Man with Newspapers Tadej Pišek
Sausage Vendor/Flower Girl/ Bread Vendor/Waitress/Housekeeper Nina Valič
Ylajali’s Partner/Store Clerk/Newspaper Street Vendor/Girl in Park/Prostitute/Housekeeper’s Servant Maruša Majer

The novel Hunger abandons with flair everything that the end-of-19th-century prose couldn’t get by – or at least it appeared so. The protagonist has no pre-history, we don’t learn anything about his family background and his psychological frame remains a mystery. At the onset it appears as if his spirit is muddled because of hunger; yet even in brief periods of satiation he seems no smarter, his thoughts being no clearer and actions only slightly more committing. Is his troubled spirit therefore the result of poverty or is the poverty coming out of the fact that the protagonist cannot compose himself, think straight or act sensibly? This question is never answered and therefore Hunger is not a social play: there are no accusations whatsoever of the cruel conditions, no demands for change. We see things through the perspective of the confused protagonist and yet we learn nothing about him. And this is the fundamental revelation of the writer Knut Hamsun: it is possible to give up on motives. It is not necessary for us to understand why persons behave the way they do; and that is the productive power of madness.

"Pipan’s theatrical adaptation of the novel is therefore a sort of collage that transfers Hamsun’s fantastically solipsistic world on stage. Its main carrier is Marko Mandić; at once the protagonist, the carrier of events and a first-person narrator. A man with no name, a man with no possessions, a man with no discernible presence, who tries in every possible way to become a renowned writer, dedicating all his energy towards that goal. A man who seems to be utterly incapable of taking care of himself as he is constantly famished, often has no place to sleep; yet always manages to conquer his hunger ifnothing else than by nibbling on a twig, but most often by his vagrant joyousness. It is this joyousness that Mandić conveys through the entire graveness of starvation, which in itself is quite impossible to stage …”

Lejla Švabič, MMC, 19 June 2015