Friday 24 June 2016

I, Who Have Dramaturgy More Innocent: Vesna Tominac Matačić @ Edfringe 2016


Ines Wurth Presents with Zagreb Acting Studio:
I, Who Have Hands More Innocent
Written by and performed by Vesna Tominac Matačić
5 – 28 August I Zoo Venues, The Sanctuary I 19.25-20.35 


Taken from the title of a poem by one of the most famous Croatian poets of all time, Vesna Parun, and written and performed by acclaimed Croatian actor Vesna Tominac Matačić, I, Who Have Hands More Innocent, chronicle’s the poet’s turbulent life across several Balkan countries, where ideals became bloody ideologies and fathers and husbands conducted their own patriarchal agendas.

I never kept a diary. But a diary has been writing itself, invisible on paper, for years somewhere inside me.

A compilation of Vesna Parun's autobiographical texts and poetry was performed very successfully in Zagreb by Vesna Tominac Matačić and awarded the grand prize in the One Person Show theatre festival in Bitola, Macedonia in 2015.




1.What was the inspiration for this performance?

2.How did you go about gathering the team for it?

3.How did you become interested in making performance?

4.Was your process typical of the way that you make a performance?

5.What do you hope that the audience will experience?

6.What strategies did you consider towards shaping this audience experience?

7.Do you see your work within any particular tradition?







1. Vesna Parun is the greatest  Croatian female poet to have ever lived. She passed through intense moments in history and within her own personal life.

Before her death she demystified her artistic masterpieces and revealed her life and so in by doing that she erased the border between art and life which is my constant obsession as an actress. So I felt inspired to create a life of a woman of whom we can all recognize.

This performance is also a kind of homage to the poet who still does not get enough acknowledgements in her own country. Here we are trying to change that.

2. I give Vesna Parun all the credit for bringing our team together from her place in the afterlife. Thanks to her, the brilliant Croatian director Ivan Leo Lemo saw the potential in this project and Tatjana Aćimović who is also one of the best Croatian producers was equally enthusiastic to join us.

We then gathered the others: Zvonimir Dusper and Ozren K. Glaser as our musicians and the  professional team of people from the Theatre &td in Zagreb.

3. Vesna Parun wrote:  „I never kept a diary. But a diary has been writing itself, invisible on paper, for years somewhere inside me. It has written itself in eerie silence, without even asking for my permission. It wrote itself with no words, no sentences, no grammatical forms, no orthographic arcaneries. I knew this was happening. I knew it was writing itself, this diary of mine, and that I would be able, aghast, to read it one day. Or hear it? “

After reading this note I felt a kind of calling to collect all her autobiographical notes she wrote about her life and to realize her wish to share it with the world.

4. With the process of acting, I’m always trying to find the truth about the character. It in turn becomes a journey of my own self truth.

The biggest challenge was that I had the responsibility to portray the life and the fate of a real and exceptional woman. I felt the best way to achieve such a task was to perform it as a monodrama with elements of lyrical poetry.

5. The words of Vesna Parun are so powerful and profound that they transcend barriers such as, language, gender, age, faiths etc. I truly believe that through our performance we can touch the hearts of our audience.

6.We didn't have any strategies except to be honest to ourselves and to the great work of Vesna Parun and so our hope was that the audience recognizes that truth and that they can  identify with timeless work of our poet.

7. I have been working on the Lee Strasberg Method Acting for many years which is based on Stanislavski system.






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