You are brave first

The play You are Brave First, directed by Ivan Penović and based on a dramatic text by Espi Tomičić, is set in a Zagreb neighborhood on the outskirts of the city. The idea for writing the text came from the impulse to find, in characters who do not want to be part of the play, their motivation for participating in it. The boys from the hood who are in this way brought to the stage, textually end up there by chance, and their awareness of the theatrical process and performance transpires throughout the duration of the play itself. Their performance and their motivation to say something intensifies as the text moves towards the end.

Rather than being a story about the characters cathartically finding the meaning of life in decency and the respect of the rule of law, the play is a depiction, in flashes, of a generation and its members who grew up on the streets. The motif of the neighborhood, as the principal locale of existence when growing up, emerged as crucial throughout the entire writing process. Through the characters, the neighborhood is described as an enclave that is disappearing and experiencing a sort of disintegration as we mature. Have all neighborhoods really changed after each generation grew up in them or is it precisely the coming of age that kills the neighborhood we used to live in?

The text, based on a model of characters with whom the playwright grew up, set in the Vrbik neighborhood of Zagreb, depicts male friendship as a vehicle for the portrayal of the working class – the characters’ petty robberies and shady dealings merely being attempts at escaping the vicious cycle of generational poverty. Surrounded by emotionally unavailable adults and without the support of the wider community and institutions, the three characters are condemned to take care of each other. Growing up together and providing each other with support in their years of transition

(from adolescence into adulthood) is outlined in the text as a strong male friendship imbued with emotions, fighting, support, secret-keeping, but also as an inextricable thread of breaking of the law together and, ultimately, a foreboding of the dissolution of friendship as a result of growing apart.

Acknowledgements: Ivan Vedak, Batman 3000, Zoni Zondo, Strahinja Arbutina, Brassoletto, Dinamo Fan Club, Andreja Jandrić

playwright

Espi Tomičić

director

Ivan Penović

cast

Pavle Matuško, Toma Medvešek, Bernard Tomić

costume designer

Ana Fucijaš

costume designer’s assistant

Tina Spahija

music

Karlo Mrkša and Filip Triplat

producer

Romana Brajša

production assistant

Hana Zrnčić Dim

light designer

Alen Marin

design

Verlauf

photographer

Karla Jurić

production

Punctum Art Organization and KunstTeatar

premiere

October 1, 2021

duration

90 minutes