A “little” story that asks big questions
Nika Arhar
Transport: Cargo. Maribor Puppet Theatre, performance seen on September 19th 2024
September 26, 2024
Cargo (15+) is the first performance of the international project Transport, within which the author of the concept Tin Grabnar, together with the same creative team (except for the animators), will direct six performances next year in six theatres from five countries – Slovenia (in addition to Maribor Puppet Theatre, also in the Ljubljana Puppet Theatre), Estonia, Lithuania, the Czech Republic and Poland. The common thematic starting point – transport, as the cornerstone of global connectivity with strong impacts on our lives and the environment – provides a broad context for determining the focuses of individual performances as independent entities and an opportunity for joint performances, announced as a puppet series or an omnibus in various combinations (the latter is announced to be performed in its entirety in Slovenia as part of the European Capital of Culture GO! 2025).
The performances are also bound by the visual image of hyper-realistic miniature sets and 3D printed and hand-painted figurines, developed in sequential movements (whereby several figurines in different body postures are required for one person), and the associated animation approach. For the story about a trucker Milan, who has to deliver a truckload of hats to a client in two days, the author of the visual image and set design Sara Slivnik (with her assistants Katarina Planinc and Laura Krajnc) places directly in front of the audience in the intimate venue of the Judgement Tower miniature, veristically convincing models of a warehouse, highway, toll station and truck stops on raised surfaces, on which Vesna Vončina and Uroš Kaurin animate – manage the events by constantly placing, arranging and changing numerous small human figurines, vehicles and other objects (3D model and figurine designer Aleksander Andželović).
The process, known from the stop motion animation, except that it chooses as its final animation technique the first phase of the film animation process (moving things around to create “images” that are in the film combined to create the illusion of fluid movement), has an interesting effect, where the construction of a particular situation or moment in space and time becomes particularly clear. With it, there is also the possibility of analysing how something came about, what led to a certain situation, and how events and coincidences connect and influence each other - and this possibility of analysis is also the basis of conceptual and dramaturgical intent. Last but not least, this kind of set and puppet design with little figurines, cars, buildings and roads is reminiscent of toys and home play environments, and this feeling of familiarity reinforces our perception of the events as something personal or at least something that is close to us and concerns us. The entire visual design, in its materiality, is an indicative spatial story, through imitation of reality and through the execution of the details, including, for example, the lighting equipment of objects and other set elements or remotely triggered car lights (Matej Lazar’s wireless lighting system). The same applies to Mateja Starič’s sound images, with their explicit imprinting and staging of sound environments and situations.
“The entire performance unravels through an extremely refined and focused perspective as a methodical unravelling of a conflict – not a personal one, but a systemic one – which, with its ending and strong emotional notch, opens a series of questions.”
Despite the attractiveness of all this visual and sound environment, it is, above all, a meticulously calm framework and context for the story rather than anything spectacular or outstanding. Vesna Vončina and Uroš Kaurin, as narrators-animators in neutral, black work clothes (Tina Bonča), change stage miniatures and the figurines and objects with the utmost precision of a pre-prepared script thus establishing individual scenes and managing the events with an objective distance. This impartial and factual view is crucial, thoughtfully interwoven and consistently carried out, also in connection with the minimalism of simple happening. Even though the subject matter offers a multitude of layers of content and motifs, mostly oriented towards the possibility of critique, the focus on the sterile, extremely lapidary personal story – perhaps not even a story, but rather on the action or task of the transport in a (too) short period –, and the purified content are bold and effective gestures with which the performance addresses the viewer. The entire performance unravels through an extremely refined and focused perspective as a methodical unravelling of a conflict – not a personal one, but a systemic one – which, with its ending and strong emotional notch, opens a series of questions.
Although the reality of the driver on the road with a few stops is dull, the staging, through the setting of situations and the music, creates a palpable tension as a consequence of the short transportation deadline and additional obstacles that prevent the smooth and punctual fulfilment of the delivery. The tension is also enhanced by sparsely measured narrative fragments with only essential information to understand the driver’s situation and by subtly indicating the paradoxes that nest between the position, rights and reality of one or another person, such as information about mandatory time for a snack or rest, which belongs to others but bypasses the protagonist. With a dramaturgically considered story (dramaturge Ajda Rooss), which does not rush, and the use of theatrical means, the tension in the very structure of the story, in its tissue, is extracted. Despite the static nature of the puppets, there is a clear sense and understanding of the internal time pressure. With each new scene, we see the friction in the driver’s circumstances, we feel his impossible situation, we can imagine his stress and anxiety, and we can interpret how he feels and what he thinks. But the staging strikes even more with its ending, even though it shows the (almost) final act right at the beginning and then the story unfolds as an analytical insight into past events.
The entire performance unravels through an extremely refined and focused perspective as a methodical unravelling of a conflict – not a personal one, but a systemic one – which, with its ending and strong emotional notch, opens a series of questions. It does not moralise and speak directly about the organisation of our globalised society, work and working conditions, responsibility, injustice, exploitation, or the different positions of individuals. Nevertheless, it almost certainly leaves all of this for the viewer to process intimately after the performance. The ending of the performance raises a question that raises the next one and the next, and with these questions the viewer can, in personal reflection, return to the entire journey of the trucker and, above all, to the broader social antagonisms – the loads and burdens – of our world.
However, if we focus on exploring the specific causes of a specific performance event – to what extent? To other hauliers, employees of various services, employers, clients, people who solve their problems in one way or another, to legislation ...? If we allow ourselves for a moment to go even further with our series of questions – without negating what was previously written or thereby diminishing the value of the performance, but only adding a piece to the complexity of the world: doesn’t the story in question bring up part of the systemic problem, which, by observing others (the express courier customer, the employer, the trucker, etc.) – like a systemic transferring to the “permitted”, already accepted problem areas of the typical agenda of the “open to criticism” democratic West – also alleviates this problem, protecting us from it to some extent?
Finally, Transport: Cargo is not only a theatrical success for a youth audience but also an important project by Slovenian artists and theatres with an ambitious conceptual and production strategy that goes beyond usual practices in our country.
The Transport project, initiated by Tin Grabnar and supported by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union, combines theatres and their puppet workshops, where numerous objects and figurines needed for all performances were produced (expected between 150 and 400 per performance), in an interesting idea, and in an unconventional work process that requires precise technical and content preparation (in addition to Grabnar, Tjaša Bertoncelj, Ana Duša and Urša Majcen also participated in collecting material and developing content concepts).