Simultaneously humorous yet analytical and precise in dissecting the absurdities of Croatian reality, Ivančić's columns provide potent theatrical material for exploring a stage-musical form in the style of a "Split Brecht." By combining the social and theatrical engagement of director Kokan Mladenović, the sharp dramatic writing of Maja Pelević, and the music and songs of Saša Antić and Luka Barbić, a production is created that will be equally theatrically inventive, socially reflective, and humorous.
Robi K, Viktora Ivančić's most famous nine-year-old in our region, is trying to understand the world and himself in completely incomprehensible circumstances to mature and fully formed individuals, let alone someone just stepping into life.
His age makes him an ideal litmus test for reading society's deviations. Society is school (a system directly connected to the state apparatus, which directs new generations where the state wants them to go), family (on which the system has collapsed and which, in its dysfunctional functionality, does everything to help Robi understand that he is living in an incomprehensible time). He hangs out with his Grandpa from Šolta, who lives by a different value system inherited from another era, showing Robi an alternative path to the past but not the future. Society is the street, Robi's crew, equally confused by the world they're about to enter, handicapped by the absurdity that nothing is what it seems or claims to be. Regarding love, Robi finds it isn't the magnificent discovery of early puberty but comes with its own set of rules - ethnic, social, and various principles that make it more complicated than it should be.
Robi K lives his childhood in a perpetual state of tension, a weight of guilt he can't quite define. This tension seeps into his dreams, distorting them into absurd, larger-than-life scenarios that, upon waking, make reality seem more nonsensical than a Monty Python sketch.
Robi is determined to prove his worth, to be the 'right boy in the right place.' Yet, his journey is fraught with absurd situations that only serve to highlight the senselessness, absurdity, and hypocrisy of the world he inhabits. Let us, the grown-up nine-year-olds who once saw the world as a better, fairer place, accompany him on this journey.
Kokan Mladenović, Director