Jean Giraudoux

Ondine

Photo: Blaž Erzetič

SNT Nova Gorica

Première: 12. 5. 2016, SNT Nova Gorica
Running time 2 hours 15 minutes. One interval.

Original title Ondine

Translator Jaka Fišer, Srečko Fišer
Director Janusz Kica
Dramaturgs Ana Kržišnik Blažica, Martina Mrhar
Language consultant Srečko Fišer
Set designer Marko Japelj
Costume designer Bjanka Adžić Ursulov
Composerj Arturo Annecchino
Lighting designer Samo Oblokar
Assistant to director Daniel Day Škufca
Assistant to language consultant Laura Brataševec
Assistant to set designer Valentin Tribušon

Cast
Ondine Arna Hadžialjević
Knight Hans Nejc Cijan Garlatti
Bertha Urška Taufer
Poet Bertram Matija Rupel
Queen Yseult Helena Peršuh
King Hercule Jože Hrovat
Chamberlain Blaž Valič
Intendant, First Judge Kristijan Guček
Actor, Second Judge Žiga Udir
Eugenie Ana Facchini
Auguste Ivo Barišič as guest
King of Ondinas Radoš Bolčina
Queen of Ondinas Marjuta Slamič
Ondins Medea Novak, Andrijana Boškoska Batič as guest, Andrej Zalesjak

Giroudoux’s fairytale and joyous yet melancholic play based on a German Medieval fairytale reflects the author’s view on the banality and absurdity of human existence. It explores the possibility of ideal love inquiring into the individual’s rift between the free spirit, epitomised by Ondine, and being caught up in social conventions as the protagonist fairy happens to be. For several decades this enchanting play was forgotten both in France and elsewhere. The reason for this lies perhaps in the fact that it is overly oneiric or because its metaphors are too ethereal for a relevant confrontation with violence that pervades our present time; or simply because its original cast is too numerous. The production tells the story of a poor couple, Auguste and Eugenie, who live in a fishermen’s cabin by a lake. Following the loss of their daughter, they find on the lakeshore a peculiar little girl, Ondine. With her unpredictability, the impulsive, sincere, magical water creature causes her foster parents a great deal of apprehensions. When a knight in shining armour appears in the cabin, Ondine falls in love and decides to marry him regardless of the warnings by her water friends. Hence a passionate love story unfolds in which the ethereal water creature is being confronted with lies and the double morality of human society.

"Before and beyond anything or anybody else is Arna Hadžialjević’s Ondine: fragile and determined, full of energy and unyielding except when it comes to matters of heart, especially when its highest representatives need to be told the truth of the world. A powerful and impetuous role. She is supported with tactful measure by the entire ensemble, frequently in several roles, representing various segments of the world: from the court to the counter-sorcerer’s tribunal, from the water elves with Radoš Bolčina leading them as their king and a mysterious Prospero-like illusionist to the conceitedness and self-sufficiency of the justice court.”

Matej Bogataj, Delo, 16 May 2016