In the Name of the Mother

grown-ups

This play is a chronological journey of the Santini family from Žirovnica from 1891 to 1991. The author uses both chronology and language style to show the life of four generations. Through the situations in which the play's characters find themselves, a documentary-like overview of the fate of the Slovenian nation is also established, from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the post-war Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and finally independent Slovenia. In four acts, we follow four generations of individuals as they defy the problems imposed on them by society. Sometimes their life-taking obstacles are of global proportions, such as the two wars, and at other times they are intimate, such as an unhappy love that leads to suicide. The play shows the fates of individuals who, on the one hand, are shaped by society, but on the other, can always escape from it to their deaths. It is a depiction of the unstoppable wheel of birth and death, driven, of course, by love. Love for one's neighbor, one's country, one's nation or one's family.

SCENE TEN

1939 –

23 August 1939.

MARIJA: How many more must I lose to wash away the sins that have been thrown into my lap by you up there, the Blind Almighty! Where did I go wrong? When? How? I was just giving out love ... more than I had ... When Željko died, the world collapsed for the first time. Ivo couldn’t handle everything that came his way. He wasn't a bad guy, but he lacked the strength to live an ordinary, simple life. And now… now that Bogdan has left of his own volition, leaving behind little Tatjana with those blue eyes of ours … Vladimir is going underground. War is upon us again, it’s started already.