The Pohorje Battalion

Première: 26 September 2023, Ptuj City Theatre

Running time 3 hours. One intermission.

Director Jernej Lorenci

Authors of the text Dino Pešut, Jernej Lorenci and creative team

Dramaturg Dino Pešut
Set designer Branko Hojnik
Costume designer Belinda Radulovič
Composer Branko Rožman
Movement consultantGregor Luštek
Assistant director and assistant dramaturg Žiga Hren
Language consultant Maja Cerar
Translator Sašo Puljarevič
Expert consultant Mateja Ratej
Lighting designer Radomir Stamenkovič
Sound designer Danijel Vogrinec

Cast
Mojca Funkl
Mirjam Korbar
Nina Rakovec
Lara Wolf, as guest
Branko Jordan
Primož Pirnat
Matej Puc
Lotos Vincenc Šparovec
Gaber K. Trseglav
Gašper Lovrec, as guest
Jure Rajšp, as guest

Shortly before noon on 8 January 1943, around 2,000 members of the occupying army surrounded the battalion camp at Osankarica. In a fierce battle – the last one – that lasted two and a half hours, 69 men were killed and the last one was taken wounded as a hostage and executed by the occupiers. Director Lorenci: "It's not really about the Pohorje Battalion at all. It's about an extreme experience in extreme circumstances: fear, hunger, cold, stench, corpses, severed limbs, rotting bodies, thirst; no kitchen, no toilet, no bed, no TV, no internet, no phone, no yoghurt, no gluten-free burger. There is nothing that I (we) take for granted. Everyday, non-negotiable. And yet I (we) judge. We judge all the time. Even if we have not had extreme experiences in extreme circumstances. So how does that give me (us) the right to judge? Is it perhaps necessary that I (we) at least try to imagine such experiences and such circumstances? Or to stop judging left, right and centre? Is it perhaps time for me (us) to stop talking?"