this apple, golden

World premiere 5^th December 2019, Štihova dvorana Cankarjevega doma, Ljubljana
Running time 1 hour 40 minutes. No intermission. 

Director Primož Ekart
Dramaturg Simona Hamer
Language consultant Maja Cerar
Costume designer Jelena Proković
Composers Duo Silence (Boris Benko, Primož Hladnik)
Vocalist Nina Šardi (JUNEsHELEN)
Choreographer Rosana Hribar
Lighting designer Andrej Hajdinjak
Assistant dramaturg (as student) Helena Šukljan
Assistant costume designer Katarina Šavs
Master electrician Luka Malovrh
Sound engineer Drago Potočnik 

Cast
Barbara Cerar a. g. 
Mirjam Korbar 
Nika Rozman a. g. 
Mia Skrbinac
Primož Vrhovec a. g.

With her recognisable style, Simona Semenič definitely represents the pinnacle of contemporary Slovenian drama. In her play this apple, golden, the winner of several Slavko Grum Awards and a Prešeren Foundation Award Laureate sheds light on female sexuality and deals with it in a way that is playful, honest, titillating, but most of all liberating, yet grounded. Her (female) characters slalom between desire and duty, intimacy and alienation, intimate longing and social expectations, between right and wrong … all the way to the climaxes where "the time stops and then the time stands still". This theatrically potent panorama of scenes and stories, which stands in front of the spectators as a unique network of witty dialogues, masterful monologues and poetic stage directions, was directed by Primož Ekart, who has twice before successfully tackled the plays by Simona Semenič.
this apple, golden, which was nominated for the Grum Award at the 47th Week of Slovenian Drama in 2017, establishes a set of rules that are entirely its own, and weave around the author (a woman author), sexuality as women know it, relationships as women see them and finally, reality, in which contemporary women live (out) their fantasies. At a first sight, it might appear that with the response of radical feminism men have experienced their own objectification, but the protagonists still leave them enough space, which then allows us, from their relationships, to discern the dilemmas of both genders when it comes to partnerships, love, cheating, even confession. The text is a dynamic discourse of intertwined stories that allow open and flexible directorial solutions in both, stage directions and dialogue, and creating dramatic roles that can be daring or subtle, symbolic or explicit, crude, and yet again romantic. In this production an apple – the symbol of a forbidden fruit, knowledge, freedom and the divine – joins women, a woman and a man, a woman and the world into a pure erotic game and thus cleverly shields it with a coat of the respectable and saves it from sliding into pornography – in theatre of all places, in an open discourse with the spectator.