The first of the twelve is “1978”: a play by the director Tomi Janežič

This evening, the premiere of “1978” by the Nova Gorica director Tomi Janežič marks the start of the DESTINYation dodecalogy: the original theatre project of twelve performances, which is part of the official programme of the European Capital of Culture 2025 Nova Gorica – Gorizia.

The show will be staged in Timișoara, Romania, the current European Capital of Culture. The director Tomi Janežič and the playwright Simona Semenič, who is preparing the miniature plays, one of the connecting elements of the twelve performances, are among the most interesting contemporary theatre-makers of European format. The twelve episodes of intimate drama, set in specific venues, mainly in Goriška, will be co-produced with the participation of a number of other artists. The project, which is being carried out in cooperation with several partners in Slovenia and abroad, is led by the Slovene National Theatre Nova Gorica and co-produced by the Mladinsko Theatre and the Krušče Creative Center.

The play “1978”, produced at the Csiky Gergely Hungarian State Theatre in Timișoara, is about Romania in the 1970s; it is a transgenerational documentary fiction based on the personal stories of the actors and the director. It is a story about the communist era, starting in a Romanian apartment and relating to many local and global events linking the regions of Timișoara and Nova Gorica, once part of the common Austro-Hungarian Empire. Over a hundred years ago, tens of thousands of Hungarian soldiers fought in the Battles of the Isonzo.

“1978” is part of the theatre dodecalogy (twelve performances) “1972-1983 DESTINYation”, which includes theatres from several countries for the European Capital of Culture 2025, which will take place in Janežič’s home town of Nova Gorica and Gorizia. Simona Semenič – a renowned Slovenian playwright with whom Janežič has collaborated in the past – is preparing a dodecalogue of miniature plays. The series of plays grows out of the space of childhood (and its relationship to other cities) and deals with themes of transgeneration, borders, socio-political-ideological changes, war, etc.

The “1978” edition is scheduled to be staged in the European Capital of Culture 2025 Nova Gorica-Gorizia.

Photo: Žiga Koritnik