Simona Semenič 5fantkov.si
5boys.si
2008
A play for five actresses with a prologue and an epilogue

 

Directed by Jure Novak

 

Opening in May 2010

Premiere performance (Performed for the first time)

 

 

Five school boys named after five beheaded Christian martyrs perform a play. Or rather several plays. They juggle roles, functions and tasks in a merry rhythm. They are directors, stage directors, in charge of casting, and the dialogues are improvised. A childish folly, which is in its heart a mimesis of adult world, fans into a wide array of characters and situations, ranging from superheroes fighting each other, brutality of domestic violence, social bigotry, to mass massacres. The five little rascals, as their teachers might have called them, painstakingly reproduce stereotypes of violence and intolerance at all levels. What surfaces through their game seems to have become inherent part of their childhood, and it seems to have become socially acceptable. The play 5boys.si addresses the global theatre hit in a humorous discussion, offering an ironic insight into the genesis of modern human relations and nature, questioning it by playing and through a game, allowing the audience to form their own opinion of what they have seen. We can paraphrase a funny marketing slogan: In the times when lies agitate our world five boys are telling the truth.

 

This play ranks Simona Semenič amongst the most radical and most interesting modern Slovenian playwrights. The play was awarded the Grum prize in April this year.