PRAVDA // The Saved will not be saved. A new play about young people is chillingly brutal.
They live with their parents even though they already have jobs – because they have nowhere else to go. At home there is nothing and no one to offer them hope for a better life. And outside, there is none either. The world simply does not care what becomes of them. So they drift, seeking escape in casual sex and violence. They suffer – and inflict suffering on others.
The play Saved by British playwright Edward Bond is chillingly raw. At Divadlo Aréna, director Dávid Paška and dramaturg Saša Sarvašová have turned it into a bold and shocking drama that pins the audience to their seats.
Not all theatre is the same – and this production is different, in both content and form. You enter the auditorium in semi-darkness and, even before taking your seat, are greeted by young characters dancing furiously on stage, as if trying to forget everything. They are separated from the audience by a transparent screen, and sharp spikes rise from the uneven floor (set design: Julius Leon Seiler). Moving through today's world is no easy task – and this play cuts deep.
Edward Bond wrote it nearly sixty years ago, yet it feels as though one is watching a portrait of the present.
A cameraman moves across the stage alongside the actors (live camera: Richard Drgoň), capturing close-ups of their faces; these are projected onto a large screen like a film, simultaneously with the stage action. When the characters speak, their language is as raw as the subject itself. A slang only they understand – for no one else can truly grasp their situation. For this reason, a transcription of the dialogue appears on the screen for the audience – in the language of the street.
Pravda rating: 5 stars
Read more:
https://kultura.pravda.sk/divadlo/clanok/787509-mladi-nebudu-spaseni-v-novej-hre-ubiju-babatko/
Saved
Author: Edward Bond
Presented by Divadlo Aréna
Director: Dávid Paška
Dramaturgy: Saša Sarvašová
Set design: Julius Leon Seiler
Costumes: Maria-Lena Poindl
Music: Juraj Bolf
Cast: Jakub Švec, Eva Gribová, Dávid Hartl, Adam Hilek, Jakub Somora, Edita Koprivčević Borsová