Žiga Divjak     Katarina Morano    

Seven Days

Year of writing: 2019
“I'm watching shit, I’m not reading, I’m not doing anything, fuck, Ljubljana, it really isn’t cool, fuck, tomorrow I’ll start … tomorrow …”
Total cast size: 19 (3 f, 3 m)

grown-ups, young adults

drama
wheels of bureaucracy, current social picture of the world, capitalism, family, relationships

The basis of the author’s project Seven Days is the feeling that the constant rush to try and ensure ourselves a better or calmer future ever so often makes us lose our grip on the individual day. This is to be a performance tackling the life of ordinary people, who in line with their best abilities try to survive week by week, hoping it won’t extend to year by year. It is to be a performance on the ordinary human, who despite the fact that the world he belongs to is heading for a certain disaster, must cultivate his »garden« that has not been thriving for a long time as it used to (if it ever thrived), or is thriving only to the extent that the ordinary man persists in hope or even without it. He strives to survive so badly that he almost forgets that perhaps he is not even living.

Seven Days is an omnibus of fates we are sharing streets with, as well as blocks of flats, office desks, cashier lines in shopping malls, wardrobes at swimming pools, toilets in our favorite bar, it is an omnibus of fates with which we line up at tables in popular restaurants, fates we share our fate with.

LUKA:

So, that’s how it started.

MIKE 3:

Oh, I see, well, I don't know, but in my opinion, it won't work, sorry. You know, the furniture is very classy, a bit antique, and with a baby around, you do understand, don’t you, no matter how hard one tries, kids destroy everything.

MIKE 2:

Taken.

MIKE 4:

I'll call you back, but we have a lot of enquiries, so it might be best you keep searching.

LUKA:

I don’t know, you can’t really hide it, can you?

MIKE 5:

This is not on.

MIKE 2:

It’s been taken.

MIKE 1:

Haven’t you read the ad, sir?

MIKE 4:

Taken.

MIKE 3:

No way.

MIKE 1:

Taken.

LUKA:

33

They would all lease it out to a quiet young couple, non-smokers, no parties, no kids, no pets, no friends, just hovering in the air to spare the wear and tear of the parquet.

MIKE 5:

Well, I don't know, maybe, but you’ll have to move out by June, because it’s Airbnb until October.

Translations

Tina Mahkota

Seven days

Language of translation: English
2019

Prior to any use of this author's original work, please familiarize yourself with Slovenian Author's and Cognate Rights Law and make sure you abide by it!

The script was published in the programme of Ljubljana City Theatre, 2018/2019.

Any use or reproduction of all or any part of this text without the written permission of the author is strictly prohibited. 

For the author's contact please write to sigledal@gmail.com.

Recently added

Awards, nominations, shortlists and recommendations

Nomination for Slavko Grum Award

Seven Days is a series of seven stories and situations, arranged like the days of the week, which alludes to a level of closure and repetitiveness; dramatic fragments follow an order, starting with the preparation for a new round of work and ending with a conclusion about the point of doing what we do, namely leisure and entertainment activities. The series of episodes from everyday routine, the omnibus is arranged according to different periods of life, starting with a young couple looking for a flat to rent where they could make a home for themselves and their expected offspring. Continuing through a nervous breakdown of a former master welder who now dresses up as a cow to entertain children in a shopping mall. Leading on to a frantic confession of an overworked creative whose business is not going well and his employers are not paying him enough, but he exerts pressure on those even more marginalised and powerless than himself ... A brother and sister who moved abroad witness the fate of an old bitch and realise that the world grew old and became dispersed whilst a family outing exposes the dysfunctionality of the family, over-exhaustion and guilt of the parents. Every single character in the play falls victim of degradation, their life turned out different than expected. Seven Days is written in a minimalist style with pregnant pauses, this play does not reveal great or suppressed facts from the past. The very bottom of society, migrant workers with no rights who have been played as no one covered their social security, are counterbalanced with the brightness of clerks who are in no position to help them even if they wanted to, because the entire system is rigid and unfair. The play is a cross-section of the society through generations, and in it everyone is losing. The world is depicted as a place of continued degradation. Despite all this there is humour in the script which consists of meticulously created moods and characterisation. There is irony in it even in the choice of themes that are being addressed as well as the skilfully written lines that sound down-to-earth and are extremely close to verbatim dialogue. Seven Days is an analysis of today’s society and aims to choose as wide a range of themes and motifs as possible, to show, in the clearest possible way, the state of the world, sentenced to consumerism, indifference and powerlessness of individuals.

Play's productions

Directed by: Žiga Divjak

Sedem dni

Mestno gledališče ljubljansko, 2019

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