The Beautiful Vida

Oton Župančič described Ivan Cankar’s final play as “a poem of longing”, indeed, Cankar’s creative process while writing it was long and painful. He’d had it in mind ever since the death of poets Dragotin Kette (1899) and Josip Murn (1901), who died in the old Cukrarna (Sugar Factory) building. “An immense morgue,” as Cankar called it, became the set for the play The Beautiful Vida. Cankar’s Beautiful Vida is no longer a wife and a mother who escapes with the Moor in the hope of a better life with the Queen of Spain, but an elusive object of desire. She is a fiancée, a lover and above all a symbol of hope for a life more beautiful, more elevated and more pristine.
What is it about the time in which we’re living and the confusion of today that reminds us of the time in which Cankar’s play The Beautiful Vida was created? Symbolism wasn’t socially engaged nor was it interested in showing contempt towards everyday life with its external manifestations. It refused factual explanations of existence, shallow sentimentality, it removed the view of everything real, from material life and from concrete social questions and turned towards higher societal norms, ideals. What would make an artist think about higher norms, ideals, today?
Time and again, man longs for the landscapes of Beauty, Truth, Goodness. The extreme idealism, beauty against constant struggle. Struggle for flats, jobs, a full bag of processed groceries, fashionable clothes, shoes, the latest and thinnest laptop. In the race to become perfect, we fight constantly, so we stand on the spot: our soul, caught in the spasm, longs for freedom, a dwelling where she comes from, for beauty. With his play The Beautiful Vida Cankar showed a way, a method of how to create such moments in theatre.
Following the extremely successful cooperation between SNG Nova Gorica, the Prešeren Theatre Kranj and the creative tandem Miha Nemec – Nejc Valenti in the staging of The Brigands two years ago, we decided to continue this cooperation with the staging of Cankar’s The Beautiful Vida.