So To Speak: Harmful/-less patriotism

The cycle of theatrical essays, So To Speak, brings original texts performed by their authors

Essayist:
Boštjan Narat: Harmful/-less patriotism

The author reflects on patriotism through two personal experiences with the state, separated by two decades, and tries to give it back depth and multilayeredness, since it seems to have been appropriated by only a part of society, turning it from a concept that encompasses the individual’s relationship to community, tradition and one’s own origins, into a slogan of fear and hatred.

The series of theatre essays So to Speak, created under the curatorial direction of Boštjan Narat, is a novelty in the Slovenian theatre scene. These are philosophically and theoretically inspired texts with a strongly expressed literary dimension, possibly enriched with a personal touch – texts performed on stage by their authors themselves in tandem with an acting partner. It is therefore a new theatrical format that successfully combines in-depth reflection on current (or eternal) topics and their dynamic presentation, thus breaking down the preconception that the two do not often go hand in hand.