There Is Nothing To Know About The Theatre, There Is Everything To Discover About Theatre

An Interview with playwright, dramaturg and director – Simona Semenic (Ljubljana, Slovenia)

Simona Semenic is one of the most important, most prolific female – feminist playwrights, directors, performers in contemporary Slovenian and European theatre and performing arts scenes, today(s). She is fruitful, witty in creating, imaging; inventive, endlessly eloquent in writing; productively rich in stage performing. She is auhtor of many staged, published and translated plays, like (selection): Five Ladies; Beautiful Vidas, Burnt Beautifully; You Are The Miracle; This Apple Made of Gold; Rowan, Strudel, Dance and More; We, The European Corpses; 5Boys.si … More references about the playwright on her official website. https://www.simonasemenic.org/

Ivanka Apostolova Baskar: Do you accept the label that you are a feminist playwright? And does feminism limit you thematically or not, in your playwriting?

Simona Semenic: Yes, of course. And I am proud to say it out loud – I am a feminist and it’s an honor if my work is considered feminist. The road to this statement was very long. When I was a beginner writer I was labeled as a feminist quite soon. At that point, I still felt being a feminist meant being a nuisance. And I didn’t want to be that. As time passed I started thinking I couldn’t be a feminist even if I wanted to. I hadn’t read Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex yet. Can one be a feminist without reading The Second Sex?

Later on, I read an article or a book, I don’t recall anymore, but I do know it was written by Eva D. Bahovec. She wrote something like – all of us should be saying we are feminists. I don’t remember exactly. But ever since I read it I have been proudly classifying myself as a feminist.

Besides being described as a feminist work, I hope my playwriting can also be described with other beliefs and thoughts. And no, feminism never limited me, I have never been thinking of it while writing. When I write I strive to answer only to myself, to my system of beliefs. If it was not coextensive with feminism, I wouldn’t be censoring myself. At least not rationally.

I used to say: “I am not a feminist. I just write.” Today I am saying: “I am a feminist. And I still just write.”

IAB: What is the place and treatment of women playwrights in contemporary Slovenian theatre in the past 10 / 15 years? Are you getting the recognition, implementation, feedback you expect and deserve, as part of the Slovenian female theatre community?

SS: In the last decade, many huge changes regarding staging female writers took place in Slovenia. First, lady playwrights started getting awards. The first-ever award for a woman playwright went to Draga Potočnjak in 2007. Today, more girls than boys are being awarded. Plays written by women are being staged in national theatres. Yes, I think the situation is getting better, but I’m still not convinced that we are recognized as equals. Maybe it’s the sardonic monsteress hiding inside me, she is never satisfied. She thinks the ongoing recognition is merely pleasing present-day mainstream political current.

IAB: How critical are you of modern feminism and its manifestations today and here, in Slovenia versus Europe and the world?

SS: I (and the devilish monstress hiding inside me) tend to be critical of everything and all the time. I am a feminist, I have a strong belief in feminism but nevertheless, I have doubts. I do understand that feminism must have a high and broad awareness of social and political injustice but at this point, I ask myself – what about a cis woman? Who is currently raising voices for a (still) marginalized cis woman? I fear that she is again standing aside waving to the convoy passing by. But maybe it’s just me getting old and not understanding the contemporary reality. And above all, this topic needs much more place and time for me to answer it. Besides, I must admit, I do get tired of constant criticism. Maybe it’s just time for me to start nodding.

IAB: From the perspective of an internationally translated author, what are the positive changes that you have noticed and experienced in terms of staging your plays on European stages outside of Slovenia?

SS: I am very sorry, but I haven’t noticed anything. I haven’t seen any stagings of my plays for years. I haven’t seen them all even in Slovenia.

IAB: In your opinion, how are you read and staged by directors on the independent stage, and how are you read by directors in national and city theaters in Slovenia and Europe (independent versus institutional)?

SS: I believe the Slovenian context is somewhat special regarding institutional and non-institutional directors. They are namely the same. The same directors are staging in national theatres as in off-off theatres. Their shows may differ a bit because they are operating with different budgets, but the ideology is the same. And therefore their understanding of my plays (or anything else) as well.

For Europe and the rest of the world, again, I wouldn’t know, I am not traveling unless I perform in my shows. I mainly perform in pieces I wrote for myself and they are all more or less experimental, staged in a non-institutional context. Therefore they are usually invited by experimental non-governmental theatre festivals and/or venues. Last year I performed and presented two of my shows at the National Theatre in Genova. One show was very well received – a famous Italian actress, Valentina Lodovini, was playing my part. She was absolutely magnificent and the spectators loved the show. The other show, much more experimental, was not that well received.

If I try to sum it up, I’d say more non-institutional stagings of my plays hit the nail on the head. Non-institutional theatre is by default bolder, more experimental, more playful, and less bound by bourgeois limitations. But on the other hand, it has very limited access to finances.

IAB: How do women theater artists/directors read and understand you, and how do men theater artists/directors who put you on stage read you? What are the similarities and what are the differences, if any, in their approaches and as opposed to directing your own plays?

SS: Oh, this is a hard one to answer. My plays were directed by older very experienced male directors and younger much less experienced female directors. It’s an impossible comparison. I would not dare to speculate about female or male understanding. Also, they were staging my plays in different environments, had access to different budgets and so many more factors that were much more important than their gender.

IAB: Who are the others directors in Slovenia and Europe with whom you would like to collaborate, and why exactly with them?

Photo Credit by Nada Zhgank.

SS: My plays have been directed by many Slovenian directors, more experienced and younger, men and women. I would love to collaborate with everyone again; maybe in a different context and with a different play. And, I would be thrilled if my work was directed by Mateja Koležnik. She is a European directing star and quite deserved so. It would be fascinating to see her interpretation of my ideas. Her theatre talent is endless, her shows radiate theatre magic.

IAB: How much did the national and important Prešeren Fund Award for best playwright / author improved your conditions for artistic creation, development of your stage career in theater, as a female author?

SS: This one is tricky. When I was awarded Prešeren Fund Award, there was quite a scandal as a nine-year-old photo of my performance emerged. It stirred up a hornet’s nest – in the photo, I was wrapped in the Slovenian flag and my pregnant belly was looking through the flag instead of the coat of arms. Many people on the right political specter found that offensive and started attacking me and a colleague of mine, prominent contemporary artist Maja Smrekar. It was quite turbulent, with politicians involved. The attack was more or less initiated by the president of the biggest right-wing political party who two years later for the third time became Slovenian prime minister. Lots of things were going on, Maja and I got a lot of support from the Slovenian cultural scene. And after that – silence. My works haven’t been staged in national theatres since, except for one co-production. I don’t know whether it has something to do with that or it’s just a coincidence. But it’s an interesting one if it is.

I’d say that my theater career actually regressed since the award, but maybe it has nothing to do with the attacks or the award. Maybe the patriarchic environment decided there was enough recognition for a female writer. Or maybe I just started producing dull art. Who knows.

IAB: In 2024 you were a mentor at a workshop of the Slovensko Mladinsko Theater Showcase; does mentoring challenge and strengthen you? And what do you notice when you mentor young aspiring domestic and international playwrights; new, and upcoming generations?

SS: Oh, yes! That is a very loud yes indeed. Mentoring young theatre artists is absolutely challenging and rewarding. I have been teaching many workshops with students from different fields – writers, dancers, directors, performers, and choreographers in several countries. Last year at Mladinsko Showcase and HZT Berlin. I enjoy exploring art with young generations, I try to follow one rule – There is nothing to know about the theatre, there is everything to discover about theatre. It’s hard, because inevitably you find yourself among all these young people with less experience and you start thinking you are the wise one. But theatre and all art don’t work this way, at least I don’t see them working this way. Art is an endless process of birth. And death, yes. I cannot be the wise one in the art process. And yes, I must be in certain aspects when teaching. But I try hard to be open enough to create a safe space for creative and intellectual interactions. So that I learn as well.

I don’t know if I’m noticing anything extraordinary. Young people with beautiful dreams and all this creative energy that is beyond inspiring. This is just the same as it was when I was young. What’s different? I don’t know, they are more observant, more politically correct. But mostly they are aware of the traps of contemporary ideology. And if they are not, at some point they will be. Art captivates them, thought excites them. And yes, success attracts them. I believe their teachers’ job is to help them find a path so that the yearning for success doesn’t blind them.

I would love to have the opportunity to commit myself to teaching new generations of artists.

IAB: Very often in your dramatic texts you do not use punctuation, nor capital letters – it seems as if you are defying certing rules in classical grammar and spelling?

SS: I don’t think so. These rules have been defeated by poetry years back. I don’t think writing plays differs so much from poetry that I should hold myself a pioneer for this.

IAB: In your plays you often experiment with tenses and time(s) – grammatical, spatial, memory, intersectional time, by using back and forth; what kind of creative impulse is it about?

SS: If I was referring to poetry in the previous answer, maybe now is the time to refer to movies. Or contemporary prose.

IAB: 4 of your plays have been translated into Macedonian language – in the play 1981, you create a retrospective of a past time, people, relationships, mindsets of a non-existent time in SFRY? According to what inspirational concept and motive, you got into it?

SS: My highschool friend committed suicide in our late thirties. I was walking through my hometown and I suddenly realized that it was not my hometown anymore. It was some other town with the same name. Even some streets had the same name, but were not the same streets. There was this enormous gap between the two countries, between two political and economic systems, yet the same place. But most of all – there was an enormous gap between the two ages of me. Yet the same person.

1981 is about all that, yes, the change between the political systems, countries. But above all, It’s a play of growing up, of aging.

IAB: In the play This Apple Made of Gold, you explore female frivolity, female manipulative eroticism and sensuality, you bring to life a female character from a painting from the time of the International Gothic and the motif of a dream and a unicorn and inhibition? (I especially love this “early renaissance” play of yours).

SS: For me This Apple Made of Gold is mostly a play of a woman’s sexual pleasure. It developed from a question – Why are erotic plays so scarce if there are any at all? So, basically, I wanted to create an erotic play principled by paraphrasing the famous quote – more sex, less drama. Needless to say, actors performing sex on the stage is near to impossible, so it was the perfect starting point to create theater magic.

The second thing was – woman’s sexual pleasure. I wanted it to be all about that. I wanted male characters in the play to be nothing more than sexual toys. The roles that are most frequently designated to women.

IAB: In the play You Are the Miracle, you greatly deal with the male narcissist archetype – a man prone to several parallel lives in which the primary victims are women, who naively idealize a thrash of a man, who happens to have the “Touch of Venus“, or a talent for erotic excitement and deception that is not a measure of long-term longevity, in relationships? What do you think about the motives of victims (housewife, factory worker lady, a teenage girl), predators, illusions, and demystification?

SS: I understand the male character in You Are the Miracle quite differently. I don’t think he is important at all. He is actually, again, just a prop that women characters need. They are unhappy for different reasons and they perceive the male character, whatever his attributes, as somewhat savior, as the answer to their deepest desires. But more important than this man are the reasons for their unhappiness and even more important, maybe, the reason why should any woman perceive some man as a savior. They want to love and be loved, yes, and this world (not just Man, but the whole capitalistic reality) is taking advantage of it. But that’s another long answer we don’t have the space for.

IAB: In the Beautiful Vidas, Burn Beautifully, you process the motive of a woman – a witch, or a lucid, perceptive, deeply intuitive woman with certain above-average sensory abilities; and you are reviving a part of the Slovenian folklore – oral tradition, but also of the tradition of the great Slovenian playwright Ivan Cankar and his dramatic requiem Beautiful Vida?

SS: Beautiful Vida is a Slovenian myth, about a woman that leaves her baby and a husband and goes on the other side of the sea. There are numerous interpretations of this myth, I just used it as a starting point for a woman who is not behaving by the expectations of society. Throughout history, these women were marked with different labels, from witches to nutcases, tortured and punished with excommunication, isolation, and also death. Today, we can for example see and understand the injustice that was done to Joanna the Mad or Camille Claudel, but we are still not able to detect numerous injustices done to women every day. Not even when we do them because of our inner patriarchic matrix.

Photo Credit by Nada Zhgank.

IAB: What does a historically and dramatically significant and insignificant woman mean?

SS: It’s an invention of my facetious monstress. Once upon a time, I was commissioned to write a play about significant women. I proposed to write about insignificant women, women who took care of the home while male heroes were fighting wars. The answer I got was that we are only interested in significant women.

And we all lived happily ever after. (Except for insignificant women, that is.)

IAB: What do you drama-predict, what do you drama-forecast in 10/15 maybe 20 years – in which direction is Slovenian society, culture and contemporary theater and performing arts moving?

SS: Oh, dear, I have no idea. I am not much of a believer in my or any country. Nor in the politics as is. But funnily enough, I do believe in theater and art. And they will be and they will grow beyond all the more or less senseless formations of society designed by male persons. (The last three words were forced by the monstress.)

IAB: Thank you very much, dear Simona Semenic.

Ljubljana/Skopje, 2025