Barbara Zemljič
BODY ALARM
The group therapy, involving four people under the supervision of an enigmatic therapist, reveals the intertwining psychological distresses caused by addiction. Each character is confronted with his or her own addiction, while at the same time they are linked by traumas from the past and the inability to face their own vulnerability. This is why the play speaks to each one of us.
Denial keeps us from seeing what we are not ready to see or feel.
This raises the issue of how much rage – directed towards ourselves or other people – we are willing to unleash in order to avoid confrontingour own powerlessness, shame, vulnerability and intolerance. Is hatred of others merely a projection of hatred of self, the result of complex trauma and pain? And how does all this manifest in our bodies?
Alarm telesa, 2025
Drama
World premiere
Premiere: 24. April 2025
Performance length is 1 hour and 30 minutes and has no pause.
Creators
Director
Barbara Zemljič
Dramaturg
Ira Ratej
Set designer
Urša Vidic
Costume designer
Tina Bonča
Composer
Laren Polič Zdravič
Coreographer
Lada Petrovski Ternovšek
Language consultant
Martin Vrtačnik
Lighting designer
Andrej Koležnik
Sound designer
Miha Peterlič
For her professional guidance and advice, we sincerely thank dr. Maja Kus Ambrož.
Actors
Nives
Iva Krajnc Bagola
Regina
Tjaša Železnik
The Therapist
Mojca Funkl
Tanja Dimitrievska
Rok
Gašper Jarni
Aleks
Lotos Vincenc Šparovec
The issue tackled by Barbara Zemljič, the author of the text and director, is not only whether we as individuals are ready to face our demons, but also how deeply these demons are rooted in the cultural norms and values that exalt selfishness, domination, power, competition and invincibility as virtues. What often goes unspoken is the fact that in the shadow of these ideals lies the fear of weakness, which we perceive as a threat to our own existence.
At the same time, it also raises a broader social issue: what does it mean to collectively accept the denial of pain, vulnerability and shame? Does social progress, such as we are witnessing now, really brings on liberation, if in doing so we alienate ourselves from our own emotional truths? Are the masks we are wearing merely the tools of survival or a means of repressing our authentic humanity? And if our masks are so tightly stuck that we cannot even take them off in front of ourselves, are we still able to see who we really are?
Are the masks we are wearing merely the tools of survival or a means of repressing our authentic humanity?
Author and Director
Barbara Zemljič is a film, television and theatre director, screenwriter, playwright and assistant professor of screenwriting at the Academy of Theatre, Radio, Film and Television, University of Ljubljana. As a screenwriter, she has collaborated in several high-profile Slovenian films, while she also directed Panic and won the Slovenian Film Directors’ Association Award for it. At the national and international festivals, she has been awarded several prizes for her film oeuvre.
Since 2017, Barbara Zemljič has also been working in Slovenian theatres. She first directed Saša Pavček’s poetic drama Under the Snow (Mini teater), while in 2020 she staged Longman’s Sparks on the Small Stage of the Ljubljana City Theatre. She has already written three plays for the Ljubljana City Theatre: the theatre crime series The Emptiness of Memory, the drama omnibus Silence Between Us and the drama Black Cumin Seed Oil.
