THE WINNERS of the 8th year of the Slovak theatre festival have been announced. The event was contested by contemporary drama performances which premiered last year in Slovak theatres. The winner of the Grand Prix New Drama 2012 was a video-theatre piece by Blaho Uhlár entitled Pokus (Experiment).
The awarding of the prizes, which took place on May 19 in the P. O. Hviezdoslav City Theatre, was the culmination of the festival, together with a staging by the Warsaw-based Teatr na Woli of Naša trieda (Our Class) by Tadeusz Slobodzianek, directed by Ondrej Spišák.
Bratislava audiences chose Epos by Andrej Kalinka and Ivan Martinka, as performed by Puppet Theatre Žilina, as the best staging. The Student Jury Award went to Dorota Maslowska’s A Couple of Poor, Polish-Speaking Romanians, performed by the Andrej Bagar Theatre Nitra and directed by Júlia Rázusová. Actress Jana Oľhová received a special Jury Award for colourful and notable performances in several plays.
The winning piece, Pokus, was by the S.T.O.K.A. theatre based in Bratislava and its writer and director Blaho Uhlár. It is an unconventional self-portrayal of Uhlár, a reality show and historical document combined.
Drama scripts were also judged as part of the festival competition; the winning piece was Lúzri (Losers) by Gabriela Alexová. The plays performed within the festival had English subtitles, and were thus a good chance to get an overview of what is going on in Slovak dramatic art, and also to enjoy contemporary Polish theatre within the Focus Poland festival section.
