Laughter and Tears of the Old Split
Drama
Ivan Kovačić

Laughter and Tears of the Old Split

Premiered at the Split Summer Festival in 2010, the play "Laughter and Tears of Old Split" has become one of the most beloved theatrical performances in this region in recent years. Bursting with the spirit of bygone eras, it is also imbued with universal, civilizationally essential questions. The heroes of the intimate accounts chronicling the everyday life of Split return to the stage at Sustipan this year once again.

Laughter and Tears of the Old Split

With much love and no embellishment, Ivan Kovačić's diligent pen tore the early 20th-century Split from oblivion across several thousand pages. Through a series of prose sketches, he left us an authentic testimony of a time and people who lived a reality entirely different from our own. Not because they were poorer, uneducated, or technologically less advanced than us today, but because they lived by principles. The play "Laughter and Tears of Old Split" provides an opportunity for us to pause, remember, and move forward with the awareness that the principles of those people were not mere emptiness, but a way of survival and nurturing a cultural and urban identity, witnessing its erosion.

Both old Split and its sensitive chronicler, Ivan Kovačić, have been inexplicably neglected and even erased from our memory. Therefore, "Laughter and Tears of Old Split," directed by Goran Golovko, will compel us to pause and contemplate what kind of survival we are pursuing as we flee from our own yesterdays.

Adaptation and Dramatization

Olja Lozica

Director

Goran Golovko

Set Designer

Ivana Poljak

Costume Designer

Marija Maca Žarak

Light Designer

Zoran Mihanović

Movement Director

Alen Čelić

Music Collaborator

Nela Bujas Luketić

Language Consultant

Jagoda Granić

Ivan Kovačić

Ratko Glavina

Grandma Filomena Kovačić

Marija Šegvić

Grandpa Petar Kovačić

Nenad Srdelić

Father Špiro Kovačić

Vicko Bilandžić

Mother Marjeta Kovačić

Bruna Bebić

Petar's Kovačić brother

Trpimir Jurkić

Auntie Ane

Snježana Sinovčić Šiškov

Frane Kovačić, Ivan's brother

Luka Čerjan

Stipe Bala, a ridiculous man

Nikša Arčanin

Jovana Keperova

Nives Ivanković

Jozo Keper, Kando Gradelica, Peasant, Store owner, Priest

Zdeslav Čotić

Dujka, Marica Prlainka, Lady with a hat

Tajana Jovanović

Franica, Majka Prlainka

Andrijana Vicković

Various roles

Goran Marković