“As a part of the Rendez-vous Festival of France in Croatia the premier of George Kaplan, a text written by one of the most intriguing contemporary French dramatist Frederic Sonntag and directed by Cynthia Ashperger.
The largest to date project by PlayDrama theatre which with this project marks six years in existence. Full Amphitheatre of the Young People’s Theatre in Split rewarded the ensemble of the production with a thunderous applause.
Ashperger who left early in her career for Canada holds a prominent position in Croatian national film and TV.”
“Cynthia Ashperger has successfully directed an extremely complex text by Sonntag, where many-leveled themes are skillfully entangled. The actors are agile in their moving from part to part and each one has a moment of prominence.” (The Zone)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biLfaniu4C8
“George Kaplan is a truly interesting show. It is humorous but at the same time it offers a critical view of the contemporary social hierarchy while leaning on a filmic tradition".(Ziher)
Top to left to bottom right: Stipe Radoja, Bojan Brajcic, Elvis Bosnjak, Sara Ivelic, Petra Kovacic.
“An excellent combination between the live performance and live video contributed to the atmosphere of argument, confusion, chaos and misunderstanding that colour the first part. The second part is full of humor and ends with the desperate Bob’s mass shooting, played masterfully by Bosnjak. After he shoots everyone upon the stage he moves on to the rest of the building and our seamlessly moves to the screen”. (Info Zone)
Press:
“This is a text of exceptional quality, written three years ago in an excellent translation by Dora Slakoper. It is a triptych about three very different groups of people connected by only one name, that of George Kaplan, the fictional person from the film “North by Northwest”. The first group consists of activists who can’t agree on their mission, the second of highly paid screenwriters who are thinking of a screenplay and the third is a group of unnamed world power mongers whose sophisticated machines caught the repetition of one name.” (Slobodna Dalmacija)
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—Free Dalmatia
“This show opens the space for large questions with its themes of conspiracy theory, freedom, fear of being watched (supported by the video camera and the multiple screens). Phantom man George Kaplan becomes a symbol of the eternal human desire to “become someone”. The question is whether this “being someone” results from the wishes of the society or is it our own doing. Does the society manipulate the individual or does the individual manipulate him/herself. In one moment one of the Georges maintains that George Kaplan is many and one and this might be a metaphor for Everyman who at the same time might be a society and an individual.
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— Info Zone
Author Frederik Sontag a the promotion of the translation of George Kaplan.