The Stage, a radio broadcast about contemporary theatre: 50 Years of the “Borštnik Ring” Award

Radio broadcast, 3rd Programme of Radio Slovenia – ARS

Authors of the radio broadcast Petra Tanko, Ana Perne (Slovenian Theatre Institute)

Fifty years have passed since the Maribor Theatre Festival presented the first "Borštnik Ring" award, the highest (guild) lifetime achievement award for actors. The first laureate in 1970 was Elvira Kralj. The principle of alternating a male and a female winner was established very early on and in 2020 we look forward to a male laureate. 

The authors Petra Tanko and Ana Perne are preparing two broadcasts with which they would like to pay tribute to the artists who have elevated the Slovenian theatre to the highest level, and also introduce the listeners to intangible cultural heritage, preserved as recordings at the Slovenian Theatre Institute. 

Honouring the chronology of the award presentation, the first broadcast is dedicated to actresses, and the second to actors who won the "Borštnik Ring" award. To avoid mere listings, expert explanations and summarising the often heard – and definitely justified – laudations, the authors focus on the excerpts from the recorded productions, archival recordings in which several Borštnik Ring laureates appeared. We can listen to the greatness of the actors in dialogues shaped by the different constellations of casts and learn about their creations, so eloquently presented through the excerpts of the productions that seem distant in time from today’s perspective, and are perhaps unknown to today’s theatre audience: the recordings are from the 1960s and the 1970s and the voices captured on them are of the Ring laureates long deceased. 

The history of the "Borštnik Ring" award will be introduced not only through the acting bravuras, but also through anecdotes and realistic titbits, for example Gombač’s financial distress when he was preparing the first awards ceremony, or the explanation why some of the greats we would expect, for example Stane Sever or Duša Počkaj, are not among the laureates, the tale of the lost ring and many other moments that happened either in front of the main curtain or behind it.