You can be anything

The world of Mara and Lenu, our two protagonists who are not girls, but not yet women, is a world where, just like Barbie, they can be anything, but this is where all their similarities with Barbie (2023) end. When asked for their opinion on Barbie, they say that, even though they laughed at some of the jokes, Daisies (1966) is still their favorite movie because Marie and Marie know how to bust the balls of old farts better. Mara and Lenu don’t play with barbies anymore, but still haven’t had their first period yet. The rules of their game are dumb.

Mara and Lenu’s humor is darker and more politically incorrect than Barbie’s, because Mara and Lenu like to take the piss, with equal fervor, out of chauvinistic jokes, absurd instances of the degradation of women around the world, horrible stories from the domestic Croatian context, but also never miss an opportunity to put each other or themselves down. They are deliberately annoying, lying, immature manipulators who whine and lie, all the while laying it on thick and hamming it up. They are all witches, after all.

The play enters into a dialogue with the current climate in Croatia and similar terribly postmodern terrible societies, in which men kneel for the lost chastity of women, and one woman experiences a public lynching because she wants to save her life with an abortion. Mara and Lenu fart and burp at such a world, because they know they can – they are, after all, little girls who don’t know anything about the world yet, though perhaps that’s precisely the point.

Women’s authors’ team:

Author of the original women’s text and director of the women’s play:

Ivana Vuković

Dramaturge of the women’s performance

Nina Gojić

Co-creators of the women’s performance and the main and supporting women’s roles

Lana Meniga and Nikolina Prkačin

Producer of the women’s production

Romana Brajša

Associate for the women’s stage movement

Andreja Jandrić

Costume designer of women’s costume design

Ana Fucijaš

Women’s costume design assistant

Tina Spahija

Women’s sound designer

Nenad Kovačić

Women’s light designer

Elvis Butković

Co-producer of the women’s production

Ivor Martinić

Women’s production assistant

Dina Tudor

Women’s costume maker

Aleksandra Jurišić Rastović

Women’s design designer

Pavao Kuharić

Women’s photography photographer

Karla Jurić

Production

Punctum Arts Organization, T25 and KunstTeatar

Premiere

19 October 2023

Duration

60 minutes

Acknowledgments

Vera Chytilová, Hana Ćurak, Silvia Federici, Goethe-Institut Kroatien, Maša Grdešić, Paula Jurić, Lana Pukanić, Olja Savičević Ivančević, Dora Šustić, Dubravka Ugrešić, Natalie Wynn, Jasna Jasna Žmak