Žiga Divjak

One of today’s most urgent issues, catastrophic climate change, is the focus of theater maker Žiga Divjak’s latest piece and steirischer herbst's first coproduction with its Slovenian neighbors from Mladinsko Theater.

In this live as well as streamed performance, six actors from Slovenia and Austria stage a public conversation in which they explore the economic reasons for the impending ecological catastrophe. Reducing our personal carbon footprint might relieve our consciences, but it does nothing to help the planet. The only way of saving the environment is by changing society as a whole. The task is to prevent the proverbial ninety-nine percent from suffering as one percent draw ever more profit from ecological meltdown.

Inspired by the theories of renowned economist Andreas Malm and anthropologist Jason Hickel’s reflections on post-growth economics, the ensemble present theories, draft threat scenarios, and launch activist appeals, oscillating between authentic representations of themselves and complex character sketches and drawing the audience into a tough dialogue about matters that concern us all.

Bio
Žiga Divjak (1992, Slovenia) is a theater director. In his pieces, he uses stripped-down documentary theater and a strong focus on text to address social and political reality. His works are clear-eyed, recognizably engaged artistic statements with robust ethics that tend to emotionally challenge and yet strongly intellectually affect their viewers. Divjak has directed with the City Theater of Ljubljana, the SNG Drama Ljubljana, and the Slovenian Youth Theater, where his most recent production Gejm won the prestigious Borštnik Award for Directing. He lives in Ljubljana.