Play
Directed by Livija Pandur
Produced by Marin Držić Theatre, Dubrovnik
Opening night: December 1 2023
More information: www.kmd.hr

Kraljice (The Queens), the fifth collaboration between directress Livija Pandur and Silence, focuses on Shakespeare's female characters. The directress explores the relations between three generations of women — previous, current, and future queens — that appear in Richard III. All similarly controlled and scarred by men, the women develop a sense of solidarity that transcends their rivalry.

The play highlights the paradoxical position of women in history and literature. They are simultaneously venerated and expendable, peripheral; both idolised and relegated to secondary, mostly non-speaking roles. Even queens are predominantly walk-ons, extras. They are subjects, not rulers. Their titles and crowns offer no protection against the aspirations and whims of powerful men.

As Virginia Woolf noted: If woman had no existence save in the fiction written by men, one would imagine her a person of the utmost importance; as great as a man, some think even greater. But this is woman in fiction. In fact, she was locked up, beaten, and flung about the room [...] Imaginatively she is of the highest importance; practically she is completely insignificant. She pervades poetry from cover to cover; she is all but absent from history.

The score consists of thirteen instrumental tracks and one song, God Save Our Gracious Queen, sung by Benko. Four compositions were performed by cellist Igor Mitrović.